AN INTERFAITH DECLARATION FOR PEACE
(from Boston)
We, members and leaders of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities in Greater Boston - all having deep and symbolic ties to the land and peoples of the Middle
East - are anguished by the events unfolding in Israel and Gaza. Recognizing the legitimate needs of all peoples, including all those living in the Middle East, for dignity, peace, safety and security –- regardless of religion, race, or national origin -- we issue this joint statement with
the hope and belief that our interfaith voices will be heard clearly, above the din of war.
As guiding principles,
We acknowledge the long, complex, and painful history
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
We acknowledge the wide range of deeply-held beliefs,
and intensely-felt narratives on all sides
We acknowledge that all sides are capable of assigning
blame to others, and asserting justification for their cause
We observe that violence by any side begets more
violence, hatred, and retaliation
We deplore any invocation of religion as a
justification for violence against others, or the
deprivation of the rights of others
We decry any use of inflammatory rhetoric that
demonizes the other and is intended, or is likely, to
promote hatred and disrespect
We believe the conflict can be resolved only through a
political and diplomatic solution and not a military
one.
In the face of many competing narratives, we recognize that
the overriding common need of the peoples of the region is
the prompt implementation of a just and lasting peace.
Toward that end, and particularly in response to the
current hostilities,
We call upon the United States and the international
community immediately to intercede to help reestablish
a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, toward the goal
of a permanent cessation of hostilities
We call upon Hamas immediately to end all rocket
attacks on Israel, and upon Israel immediately to end
its military campaign in Gaza
We call for an immediate end to all strikes on
civilian centers and citizens, both Israeli and
Palestinian
We call for lifting of the blockade on Gaza as to all
non-military goods, for an immediate and significant
increase in humanitarian aid to address the needs of
the people of Gaza, and for all parties involved to
join in taking responsibility to address those human
needs
We call on all parties involved in the conflict to
work sincerely and vigorously toward a just and
lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national
aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian
peoples
We call on President-elect Obama to make clear that as
President he will urgently assert US leadership to
achieve a comprehensive diplomatic resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts
Through this joint statement we affirm our commitment to
engage with one another, even, and especially, during times
of great stress. We also affirm our common humanity and
our common belief – as Jews, Muslims and Christians - that
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must cease, that there is
no military or violent solution, that all human life is
valued, and that all parties must cooperate to make the
peace – a just and lasting peace desperately needed and
deserved by all the peoples of the region.
Signed:
Salwa Abd-Allah, Executive Council, Muslim American Society of Boston (MAS Boston), Islamic
Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC)
Tariq Ali, President, Harvard Islamic Society
Hossam AlJabri, President, MAS Boston-ISBCC; Trustee, Interreligious Center for Public Life
(ICPL)
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, President, United Church of Christ Mass. Conference
Abdul Cader Asmal, Past President, Islamic Council of New England and Islamic Center
of Boston; Trustee ICPL
Rabbi Al Axelrad, Hillel Director Emeritus, Brandeis University
Diane Balser, Executive Director, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom
Dorothy C. Buck, Ph.D., Director, Badaliya
Rev. Nick Carter, Ph.D., President, Andover Newton Theological School
Dris Djermoun, President, Islamic Center of Boston (Wayland)
Diana L. Eck, Professor, Harvard University
Imam Talal Eid, Islamic Institute of Boston; Chaplain Brandeis University
Ashraf Elkerm, Board Chairman, Islamic Center of Greater Worcester
Rev. Dr. Terasa G. Cooley, Unitarian Universalist Mass. Bay District Executive
Mercedes S. Evans, Esq., Committee on Contemporary Spiritual & Public Concerns (CSPC
Committee) (Civil Rights)
Imam Abdullah Faruuq, Imam, Mosque for the Praising of Allah (Roxbury)
Michael Felsen, President, Boston Workmen's Circle
Lisa Gallatin, Executive Director, Boston Workmen's Circle
Zekeriyya Gemici, President, MIT Muslim Students Association
Rabbi David Gordis
Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector, Rabbinical School, Hebrew College, Newton
Rev. Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., Instructor, Conflict Resolution, Boston College
Arnold Hiatt
Rev. Jack Johnson, Executive Director, Mass. Council of Churches
M. Bilal Kaleem, Executive Director, MAS Boston-ISBCC
Anwar Kazmi, Executive Council, MAS Boston-ISBCC
Alexander Kern, Executive Director, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
Nabeel Khudairi, Past President, Islamic Council of New England
Idit Klein, Executive Director, Keshet
Margie Klein, Co-Director, Moishe/Kavod House
Mary Lahaj, Muslim Chaplain, Simmons College
Geoffrey Lewis
Imam Taalib Mahdee, Imam, Masjid Al-Quran, (Dorchester)
Rev. Bert Marshall, Church World Service, New England Director
Jerome D. Maryon, Esq., President, CSPC Committee
Michael J. Moran, Pax Christi Massachusetts
Sister Jane Morrissey, SSJ, Pax Christi Massachusetts
Merrie Najimy, President, American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, MA
Imam Khalid Nasr, Imam, ICNE-Quincy
Imam Basyouni Nehela, Imam, Islamic Society of Boston
Rashid Noor, President, Islamic Center of New England
Rabbi Sara Paasche-Orlow
Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Temple Hillel B'nai Torah
Rev. Rodney L. Petersen, Ph.D., Executive Director, Boston Theological Institute
Dr Asif Rizvi, President-Elect, Islamic Council of New England
Rabbi Victor Reinstein, Nehar Shalom
Rev. Anne Robertson, Executive Director, Massachusetts Bible Society
Qasim Salimi, President, Boston University Muslim Students Association
Robert M. Sarly, Trustee, ICPL
Rev. Mikel E. Satcher, Ph.D., Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church
Professor Adam Seligman, Boston University
Rabbi Sanford Seltzer, Chair, ICPL
Enid Shapiro, Trustee, ICPL
Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Episcopal Bishop, Diocese of Massachusetts
Alan Solomont
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Congregation Dorshei Tzedek
Rev. John K. Stendahl, Pastor, Lutheran Church of the Newtons
Sidney Topol
Rabbi Andrew Vogel, Temple Sinai
Peter D. Weaver, Bishop, United Methodist Church, Boston Area
(Organizational affiliations for identification purposes only)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Israeli and Palestinian narratives
Although it’s difficult at an emotional time like this to study the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s important. Some valuable work has been done by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East . One can download and read workbooks they have produced which present (side by side) the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and invite the reader to make his/her own observations.
Although it’s difficult at an emotional time like this to study the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s important. Some valuable work has been done by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East . One can download and read workbooks they have produced which present (side by side) the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and invite the reader to make his/her own observations.
A letter from a Rabbi
The following is a letter send by a British rabbi to members of his congregation:
Dear Community
I have never before written to the community twice in one week. But so many people, of many different opinions, all full of anguish over the present and hope for a better future, have spoken to me.
The terrible events unfolding in Israel and Gaza have immense significance for the hope of peace in the Middle East and also affect the future of Jewish Muslim relations, and relationships within wider society, in Europe and the world. I have a heavy and torn heart.
First of all, my prayers for safety and protection are with all our loved ones who may be in danger wherever they are, and with all those who are suffering.
My conscience tells me that I have a religious duty to assert and strive adequately for the value of life, all life, every life. I understand Jewish ethics to teach the inestimable value of every single life and that human rights know no boundaries of race or nation. I therefore beg everyone to pray, act and toil for peace and understanding, however absurd such a plea may at times seem.
I realise as I write that, unlike many members of the community and their children, I do not know what it is like to fight, or see my children fight, for my country. I do not at all know what it has been like to live in Sderot for years with constant danger, or indeed now Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. I do not know and cannot imagine what it must be like to be an ordinary person in Gaza for all these hopeless years, with children, in utter fear now, caught between Hamas and Israel, with the ceaseless sounds of gunfire and rockets.
I do not need to repeat in these circles our abhorrence for Hamas and their culture of terror and murder. I have seen the tears and heard the cry of many whose beloved children and relatives have been killed. There is an utter cynicism and culture of death within Hamas which is terrifying. They have killed huge numbers of their own population. That Israel could not tolerate thousands of rockets being fired with the deliberate intention of killing anyone and everyone, that is to my mind unarguable. If you have any doubt, look on Hamas’ website. Listen to Colin Shindler’s well informed lecture. The rockets must stop.
But I am also saddened and anguished, I know everyone is, at the awful suffering and loss of life in Gaza. This was said many times at the rally. We should have paid more attention to that suffering long ago. That Hamas criminally and cynically uses innocent people as a human shield does not, as we know, clear us of all moral responsibility for whatever happens. All innocent blood cries out to God and to the human conscience. We too have our responsibilities and cannot hide from them. That is why we must call out for the sake of life and peace. Rabbis for Human Rights, to which I belong, are striving courageously as an expression of the love of Israel to ensure that the wounded of all sides are evacuated and cared for and that we do not do more wrongs.
I attended the rally in Trafalgar Square, believing it essential to stand up as a Jew, to support the right of Israel to exist and its right to respond to Hamas, but horrified, pained and fearful about the terrible loss of life in this war. How much blood has been shed? How many people are wounded and terrified? How many people are dazed and grief stricken? What suffering on both sides, about which we have thought too little, lies behind all this? How much new hatred is now being born? How is good to come of this? How is this to be turned into peace? Every speaker stressed our pain for what is happening to the people both of southern Israel and also of Gaza. But we have to mean it, not just say it. That is why we must act, pray and plead that this violence must truly end for good.
Other issues emerge out of this war. We must not be intimated by such slogans as ‘We are all Hamas now’. Terrible things have been said to, and about, Jews and awful threats have been made. We must challenge them.
At the same time we have a responsibility to reach out across the widening gulf of fear, anger and pain, to friends and colleagues in the Muslim community. Where we can, we should talk together, mourn together, hope together. Otherwise we too will find ourselves unable to look each other in the face, without anything we can say or anyone we can say it to. This is urgent and it’s for us to do here, in London, in Britain now.
People have asked me where to go to read different analyses of what is happening in Israel and Gaza, other than the British media or official views for and against. The obvious answer is the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post online. Here, there are a huge range of trenchant and important views from the left to the right of the spectrum.
People have also asked me what we can do.
We should keep closely in touch with friends and relatives in Israel. Contact from us is really, really important. Where we have friends and colleagues in the Muslim community we should keep communication alive. We can share our pain over the loss of all life and our hopes for a better future for all.
We can give money to hospitals caring for the wounded, in Israel, Gaza and elsewhere and to organisations (I only know of them in Israel at this point and they include the Masorti Movement) which help take ordinary people, especially children, out of the range of the conflict.
We should pray, for our loved ones, for Israel, and Gaza, for the wounded and the grief stricken, and for a swift, enduring end to this fighting.
May peace come quickly.
Jonathan Wittenberg
I attach this plea by Daniel Barenboim:
"For the last forty years, history has proven that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be settled by force. Every effort, every possible means and resource of imagination and reflection, should now be brought into play to find a new way forward. A new initiative which allays fear, acknowledges injustice, and leads to the security of Israelis and Palestinians alike. An initiative which demands of all sides a common responsibility : to insure equal rights and dignity to both peoples, and ensures the right of each person to transcend the past and aspire to a future." Daniel Barenboim
The following is a letter send by a British rabbi to members of his congregation:
Tuesday 13 January, 2009
17 Tevet, 5769
17 Tevet, 5769
Dear Community
I have never before written to the community twice in one week. But so many people, of many different opinions, all full of anguish over the present and hope for a better future, have spoken to me.
The terrible events unfolding in Israel and Gaza have immense significance for the hope of peace in the Middle East and also affect the future of Jewish Muslim relations, and relationships within wider society, in Europe and the world. I have a heavy and torn heart.
First of all, my prayers for safety and protection are with all our loved ones who may be in danger wherever they are, and with all those who are suffering.
My conscience tells me that I have a religious duty to assert and strive adequately for the value of life, all life, every life. I understand Jewish ethics to teach the inestimable value of every single life and that human rights know no boundaries of race or nation. I therefore beg everyone to pray, act and toil for peace and understanding, however absurd such a plea may at times seem.
I realise as I write that, unlike many members of the community and their children, I do not know what it is like to fight, or see my children fight, for my country. I do not at all know what it has been like to live in Sderot for years with constant danger, or indeed now Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. I do not know and cannot imagine what it must be like to be an ordinary person in Gaza for all these hopeless years, with children, in utter fear now, caught between Hamas and Israel, with the ceaseless sounds of gunfire and rockets.
I do not need to repeat in these circles our abhorrence for Hamas and their culture of terror and murder. I have seen the tears and heard the cry of many whose beloved children and relatives have been killed. There is an utter cynicism and culture of death within Hamas which is terrifying. They have killed huge numbers of their own population. That Israel could not tolerate thousands of rockets being fired with the deliberate intention of killing anyone and everyone, that is to my mind unarguable. If you have any doubt, look on Hamas’ website. Listen to Colin Shindler’s well informed lecture. The rockets must stop.
But I am also saddened and anguished, I know everyone is, at the awful suffering and loss of life in Gaza. This was said many times at the rally. We should have paid more attention to that suffering long ago. That Hamas criminally and cynically uses innocent people as a human shield does not, as we know, clear us of all moral responsibility for whatever happens. All innocent blood cries out to God and to the human conscience. We too have our responsibilities and cannot hide from them. That is why we must call out for the sake of life and peace. Rabbis for Human Rights, to which I belong, are striving courageously as an expression of the love of Israel to ensure that the wounded of all sides are evacuated and cared for and that we do not do more wrongs.
I attended the rally in Trafalgar Square, believing it essential to stand up as a Jew, to support the right of Israel to exist and its right to respond to Hamas, but horrified, pained and fearful about the terrible loss of life in this war. How much blood has been shed? How many people are wounded and terrified? How many people are dazed and grief stricken? What suffering on both sides, about which we have thought too little, lies behind all this? How much new hatred is now being born? How is good to come of this? How is this to be turned into peace? Every speaker stressed our pain for what is happening to the people both of southern Israel and also of Gaza. But we have to mean it, not just say it. That is why we must act, pray and plead that this violence must truly end for good.
Other issues emerge out of this war. We must not be intimated by such slogans as ‘We are all Hamas now’. Terrible things have been said to, and about, Jews and awful threats have been made. We must challenge them.
At the same time we have a responsibility to reach out across the widening gulf of fear, anger and pain, to friends and colleagues in the Muslim community. Where we can, we should talk together, mourn together, hope together. Otherwise we too will find ourselves unable to look each other in the face, without anything we can say or anyone we can say it to. This is urgent and it’s for us to do here, in London, in Britain now.
People have asked me where to go to read different analyses of what is happening in Israel and Gaza, other than the British media or official views for and against. The obvious answer is the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post online. Here, there are a huge range of trenchant and important views from the left to the right of the spectrum.
People have also asked me what we can do.
We should keep closely in touch with friends and relatives in Israel. Contact from us is really, really important. Where we have friends and colleagues in the Muslim community we should keep communication alive. We can share our pain over the loss of all life and our hopes for a better future for all.
We can give money to hospitals caring for the wounded, in Israel, Gaza and elsewhere and to organisations (I only know of them in Israel at this point and they include the Masorti Movement) which help take ordinary people, especially children, out of the range of the conflict.
We should pray, for our loved ones, for Israel, and Gaza, for the wounded and the grief stricken, and for a swift, enduring end to this fighting.
May peace come quickly.
Jonathan Wittenberg
I attach this plea by Daniel Barenboim:
"For the last forty years, history has proven that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be settled by force. Every effort, every possible means and resource of imagination and reflection, should now be brought into play to find a new way forward. A new initiative which allays fear, acknowledges injustice, and leads to the security of Israelis and Palestinians alike. An initiative which demands of all sides a common responsibility : to insure equal rights and dignity to both peoples, and ensures the right of each person to transcend the past and aspire to a future." Daniel Barenboim
Wednesday's letter from Gaza
Dear friend 14/1/2009
Due to the rejection by Hamas of the Egyptian initiative yesterday, I was expecting a hard night , but I was wrong and I gained a long night's sleep , until I woke up on a very big bombardment from an F16 at 5:00 early morning .
I thought that this was in our area only , but I discovered that movement of the Israeli army in all fronts where it exists , was slow and not violent as usual , although the Israeli radio said that last night there were 10 injured soldiers .
On the other side the number of Palestinian victims comes to about 976 most of them were children ( 30%) , women (10%), and innocent civilians (30-40%).
Israeli radio quoted that the one side ( Israeli) cease fire will start today at 13:00 local time for 3 hours . It seems that Israel is changing the timing of the one side cease fire every day to prove to the Palestinians in Gaza that they have the upper hand .
Yesterday conversations with the people whom I met , all wanted this war to have an end , and blaming the leaders of Hamas who are sitting watching in Damascus while the civilians are killed every day in Gaza.
While I am writing this message( at (08:30) ,there were several big bombardments , which we don’t know yet what had been shelled .
We hope that the visit of Ban Key Moon to the area will be fruitful , to end this bloody and dirty war .
Some friends said that may Hamas is waiting for the new resident of the White House in the USA , which means that we have to continue this war for another week ! Everybody in Gaza is suffering , and wants this war to have an end soon . I heard that Hamas proposed a one week cease fire , but this proposal was rejected by Israel . An Israeli official is quoted that the cease fire of 3 steps is almost ready and to be implemented early next week !!!
On the occasion of the visit of the chairman of the Red Cross International to Gaza yesterday , I'd like that some of you to contact the Red Cross International to assist in protecting our Palestinian Ambulances , as well as the Civil Defense vehicles which is considered as targets by the Israeli Air fighters . Several paramedics and Civil Defense officers have been killed during their work to give assistance to the others ( In many cases , the Israeli army forbids the ambulances to reach the injured persons for long time , which resulted to death due to bleeding !! ).
Also while writing this message , and listening to my small radio (adjacent to me for 24hrs a day ) , I heard the Israeli radio quoting the fall of 2 Katusha rockets on Kiryat Shmona at North Israel ( This is considered the 2nd fall since 8/1/2009).
Although it is not so important for me , but the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total economic loss in this war until 12/1/2009 by US$ 1.4 billion ( I have my share in this loss !!!) .
Dear friend 14/1/2009
Due to the rejection by Hamas of the Egyptian initiative yesterday, I was expecting a hard night , but I was wrong and I gained a long night's sleep , until I woke up on a very big bombardment from an F16 at 5:00 early morning .
I thought that this was in our area only , but I discovered that movement of the Israeli army in all fronts where it exists , was slow and not violent as usual , although the Israeli radio said that last night there were 10 injured soldiers .
On the other side the number of Palestinian victims comes to about 976 most of them were children ( 30%) , women (10%), and innocent civilians (30-40%).
Israeli radio quoted that the one side ( Israeli) cease fire will start today at 13:00 local time for 3 hours . It seems that Israel is changing the timing of the one side cease fire every day to prove to the Palestinians in Gaza that they have the upper hand .
Yesterday conversations with the people whom I met , all wanted this war to have an end , and blaming the leaders of Hamas who are sitting watching in Damascus while the civilians are killed every day in Gaza.
While I am writing this message( at (08:30) ,there were several big bombardments , which we don’t know yet what had been shelled .
We hope that the visit of Ban Key Moon to the area will be fruitful , to end this bloody and dirty war .
Some friends said that may Hamas is waiting for the new resident of the White House in the USA , which means that we have to continue this war for another week ! Everybody in Gaza is suffering , and wants this war to have an end soon . I heard that Hamas proposed a one week cease fire , but this proposal was rejected by Israel . An Israeli official is quoted that the cease fire of 3 steps is almost ready and to be implemented early next week !!!
On the occasion of the visit of the chairman of the Red Cross International to Gaza yesterday , I'd like that some of you to contact the Red Cross International to assist in protecting our Palestinian Ambulances , as well as the Civil Defense vehicles which is considered as targets by the Israeli Air fighters . Several paramedics and Civil Defense officers have been killed during their work to give assistance to the others ( In many cases , the Israeli army forbids the ambulances to reach the injured persons for long time , which resulted to death due to bleeding !! ).
Also while writing this message , and listening to my small radio (adjacent to me for 24hrs a day ) , I heard the Israeli radio quoting the fall of 2 Katusha rockets on Kiryat Shmona at North Israel ( This is considered the 2nd fall since 8/1/2009).
Although it is not so important for me , but the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total economic loss in this war until 12/1/2009 by US$ 1.4 billion ( I have my share in this loss !!!) .
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Today's letter from Gaza
Dear friend ,
As quiet as was the Israeli Southern town ( Sederot ) last night, so was it a terribly violent night for Gaza City , especially the South West , and North West parts of the City !! It was so horrible , I believe that it was the most horrible and heaviest bombardment nights since 27/12/208 .
I am living in the South West part of the City , where the Israeli tanks which came from their positions in Netsarim junction through the fields for fear of using the main roads .Tanks and other arms started shelling the area since 23:00 last night until 6:00 O'clock this morning . No one could sleep , and many civilian and private buildings been shelled , including a high rise building .
Myself and my family were sitting in our beds looking to each other , before going to sleep for 2 hours (6:00-8:00).
Israeli army declared that the cease fire period will be from 9:00 -12:00 our local time ( It is the fourth time that they change the timing of such period ! Maybe to let people believe that they have the upper hand for what we call self curfew ) .
Yesterday the Israeli helicopters shelled the main Palestine square in Gaza city when the cease fire period terminated ,while most of the people went to buy some small necessities including food and other needs . The result was 2 civilian victims and 10 civilians injured .
The Israeli Army is squeezing the City of Gaza from North and south as a pliers , in addition to their bombardment in the East , while the warships are taking care of the Western part of the city .
Number of Palestinian victims comes to 919 , one third of them were children !!where injured persons count comes to about 4260 .
Until now Israeli army shelled about 2200 targets in the whole Gaza Strip .
I wonder whether the Israeli army knows that he went to this war to achieve peace , as said by the Israeli leaders !!So I wonder why the army is planting hatred among the Palestinians against the attacks he carried out against the civilians . The criticism that fighters are using the civilians as a shelter never give the Israeli army the right to target the civilians , knowing how accurate the Israeli army can be due to the very high sophisticated technology he is using in this one side war ( Big army against some thousands of fighters !! ) .
Yesterday Ismae'l Haneyyah from his bunker sent a message that he is in favor with any initiative that can stop this war and guarantee the withdrawal of the Israeli army , in addition to lift the closure and open the crossing borders . The word carries some optimism hope to be real .
People are moving from place to place for their safety , where I believe that every single square centimeter in Gaza is unsafe !!
Despite the one way ( Israeli) cease fire started 45 minutes ago , but there are still some bombardments from the Israeli army !!
I hope that things will change for better , as we already – in my point of view – reached the worst day and night in this war !!
Dear friend ,
As quiet as was the Israeli Southern town ( Sederot ) last night, so was it a terribly violent night for Gaza City , especially the South West , and North West parts of the City !! It was so horrible , I believe that it was the most horrible and heaviest bombardment nights since 27/12/208 .
I am living in the South West part of the City , where the Israeli tanks which came from their positions in Netsarim junction through the fields for fear of using the main roads .Tanks and other arms started shelling the area since 23:00 last night until 6:00 O'clock this morning . No one could sleep , and many civilian and private buildings been shelled , including a high rise building .
Myself and my family were sitting in our beds looking to each other , before going to sleep for 2 hours (6:00-8:00).
Israeli army declared that the cease fire period will be from 9:00 -12:00 our local time ( It is the fourth time that they change the timing of such period ! Maybe to let people believe that they have the upper hand for what we call self curfew ) .
Yesterday the Israeli helicopters shelled the main Palestine square in Gaza city when the cease fire period terminated ,while most of the people went to buy some small necessities including food and other needs . The result was 2 civilian victims and 10 civilians injured .
The Israeli Army is squeezing the City of Gaza from North and south as a pliers , in addition to their bombardment in the East , while the warships are taking care of the Western part of the city .
Number of Palestinian victims comes to 919 , one third of them were children !!where injured persons count comes to about 4260 .
Until now Israeli army shelled about 2200 targets in the whole Gaza Strip .
I wonder whether the Israeli army knows that he went to this war to achieve peace , as said by the Israeli leaders !!So I wonder why the army is planting hatred among the Palestinians against the attacks he carried out against the civilians . The criticism that fighters are using the civilians as a shelter never give the Israeli army the right to target the civilians , knowing how accurate the Israeli army can be due to the very high sophisticated technology he is using in this one side war ( Big army against some thousands of fighters !! ) .
Yesterday Ismae'l Haneyyah from his bunker sent a message that he is in favor with any initiative that can stop this war and guarantee the withdrawal of the Israeli army , in addition to lift the closure and open the crossing borders . The word carries some optimism hope to be real .
People are moving from place to place for their safety , where I believe that every single square centimeter in Gaza is unsafe !!
Despite the one way ( Israeli) cease fire started 45 minutes ago , but there are still some bombardments from the Israeli army !!
I hope that things will change for better , as we already – in my point of view – reached the worst day and night in this war !!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming election
This is the headline of a article on the Ha'aretz website reporting that the Central Elections Committee in Israel's Knesset voted to ban 2 Arab political parties from running in the upcoming Israeli general election. I was truly shocked until I heard on a news item on Israel's Channel 10 TV news explaining that the same thing happened in the last two elections in 2003 and 2006 and both times the decision was overturned by Israel's Supreme Court. I hope and expect the court to do so again, for the sake of Israeli democracy.
N.B. The decision did not include Hadash (formerly the Israeli Communist party) which is frequently perceived as an Arab party since most of its voters are Arab, but which has also 2 Jews on its list of candidates for the upcoming elections.
This is the headline of a article on the Ha'aretz website reporting that the Central Elections Committee in Israel's Knesset voted to ban 2 Arab political parties from running in the upcoming Israeli general election. I was truly shocked until I heard on a news item on Israel's Channel 10 TV news explaining that the same thing happened in the last two elections in 2003 and 2006 and both times the decision was overturned by Israel's Supreme Court. I hope and expect the court to do so again, for the sake of Israeli democracy.
N.B. The decision did not include Hadash (formerly the Israeli Communist party) which is frequently perceived as an Arab party since most of its voters are Arab, but which has also 2 Jews on its list of candidates for the upcoming elections.
YouTube wars
Just a few minutes ago I received the following email:
The IDF ("Israeli Defence Force", i.e. the Israeli Army) have set up broadcasts on U Tube explaining what's going on. U Tube wants to remove the IDF site, using the excuse that too few people are logging in to view it. Please visit the site and encourage all your friends to do so as soon as possible. Forward this email, so that many more people will log in and the IDF can continue to make its voice heard. Thanks!
http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk
This struck me as rather strange because, on looking at the YouTube page, I saw that it has a fabulous number of views, and also that it's one of the most popular YouTube sites at the moment. In fact the Ha'aretz newspaper has a story on its front page today about how popular the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) clips are on YouTube.
And then I thought about it...what another brilliant Zionist trick...sending out emails telling people that too few people are logging into the site so that even more people will look at it. War is a dirty business and the Israelis are certainly winning this Internet war.
Note that the IDF's page on YouTube talks about its "humane action" in Gaza...... remind me to call in the IDF the next time I want some humane action killing almost 300 children in the last 2 weeks.
Just Imagine....Just in case this cartoon is unclear, it depicts, under the headline "Just Imagine..." a Hamas jet fighter bombing Tel Aviv as the Hamas fighter pilot speculates "Ha! This will make the Israelis turn against their government! "
Think about it, friends, especially my Israeli friends, think about it....
Today's letter from Gaza
My friend from Gaza writes today:
Last night can be considered quieter than the night that preceded it, especially in the South-Western side of Gaza City .... But this night was marked by heavy machine-gun fire from the helicopters, in addition to other arms such as tanks , Navy artilleries and F16 air fighters , which bombed several Buildings : One of them was the Resident of Mohammad Dahlan, which was confiscated by Hamas since the coup in June 2007.
As a result of this strike , the house of my cousin next to him was partially damaged ( member of Parliament from Fatah ), where his home was a safe haven for a large group of relatives who were representing 3 families in addition to his family!!
My friend from Gaza writes today:
Last night can be considered quieter than the night that preceded it, especially in the South-Western side of Gaza City .... But this night was marked by heavy machine-gun fire from the helicopters, in addition to other arms such as tanks , Navy artilleries and F16 air fighters , which bombed several Buildings : One of them was the Resident of Mohammad Dahlan, which was confiscated by Hamas since the coup in June 2007.
As a result of this strike , the house of my cousin next to him was partially damaged ( member of Parliament from Fatah ), where his home was a safe haven for a large group of relatives who were representing 3 families in addition to his family!!
Another site which was struck by the F16 was a gas station which burst into flames and smoke still rising from it at the time of writing this letter.
Doctors in Gaza said that Israeli Army may be using Phosphorous missiles due to the burns they noticed on both dead and injured persons .
One can smell the war in every place in Gaza as a result of the excessive use of arms .
There was a continuous bombing raid on the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, in addition to the bombing on all fronts, especially the areas along the Gaza border with Israel (north, east and south) and by the Israeli navy war ships on the coast of Gaza.
The number of rockets fired from Hamas at Southern Israel yesterday, was 12 rockets and the day before it was 15 rockets , compared with about 50-80 rockets per day at the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip !!!
However, on the other hand , we find that the number of casualties on the Palestinian side is increasing, especially among civilians, were number of victims yesterday was , about 38, mostly civilians, while Israel claimed that the death toll yesterday was 50 , most of them were Hamas fighters!!!
In my view, although the Israeli government had announced the recruitment of the reserve for the start of Phase III, but I think that there is a political dynamic on the cease-fire because Israel is afraid of entering the cities where all of very high density, because this will cost Israel many victims ( leaders didn't want to lose many victims before the parliamentary elections in Israel on 10/2/2009) , in addition that such entering will take much time (several months and perhaps a year or more). So I think that the work of the Israeli operations now is to move these troops from their positions to clear ( raze ) the land around it with the assistance of aircraft of all kinds.
Today , the Hamas delegation will come to Cairo, consisting of 3 members from the Gaza Strip and a 2 member of the Damascus Hamas leaders to continue the discussions on a cease-fire . This led to make Amos Gilad to delay his visit to Cairo by one day (tomorrow) , as by tomorrow may be the Egyptians will have answers from Hamas ( The Egyptians looks optimistic ) .
The statement of President-elect Obama that the U.S. Would put the case for war on Gaza, on the top of his priorities when being the President of USA on 20/1/2009 , so may this convince the Israelis that this process should be terminated as soon as the required internationally.
Personally and due to the horror and psychological situation we live , my spastic colon started to operate since many days ago !!
As per all my messages to you , let's hope that such dirty war will come to an end soon , and before it will be too late !!!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
An Open Letter to an Israeli Friend
by Samir El-youssef, a Palestinian living in Europe
Dear Friend
Yet again we find ourselves on opposite sides of a divide where people believe that their own action is totally justified while the reaction of the other side is sheer aggression. Yet again we find ourselves resorting to silence fearing that what we might say could be interpreted as a statement of disloyalty to either one’s own people or to one’s friends on the other side. And yet again we face the challenge of envisaging a language that could spare us both the shame of silence and the accusation of treason; a language that in spite of everything would up hold our hope for peaceful co-existence.
Indeed, the question, is it possible still to speak about peace- and I am not talking here about the meaningless ritual of ‘going back to the negotiation table’- when all this happening? For, let’s face it, what’s happening in Gaza
But then- let me ask the question on your behalf- what should Israel Gaza has been under siege because Hamas is an illegitimate power; and it is a fascist organisation of which the destruction of Israel
We have long agreed that to believe realistically in the possibility of peace in Palestine/Israel one must be able to sustain an enduring, hard, and possibly disparate hope; so disparate that sometimes it could only be seen in the most causal of statements and tinniest of signs. And that’s how it seems now; hope need to be dug from under the rubble. First we need to ignore the shamelessly game-like visual coverage of the media; and let’s for a minute forget the fanatic ideology of Hamas and the cynic agenda of the Israeli Government (rather than protecting Israeli citizens from Hamas’ rockets, it has been widely claimed, that this military operation is a part of the Kadima Government’s election campaign to win voters by proving to them that it could be as tough as the right wing parties.) let’s ask: could we see anything positive or good behind all this?
The answer is yes, but only if we see it in terms of real politics, that’s if we see the actions of both parties not so much in terms of declared ideological or political goals but as an attempt to hold on to their political power. I believe that each Hamas and the Kadima Government of Israel wants the other to deal with it prudently; that’s to deal with each other’s existence without the dictates of ideology and rhetoric. Both Hamas and Israel
Like any political power Hamas wants to enjoy being in control; war would only spoil their fun and that’s why they have been offering truce to Israel Israel Israel Israel
This exactly what Israel Israel Israel didn't manage to destroy Hezbollah and nor to retrieve the kidnapped soldiers but Israel Gaza has not taken the expected step of attacking Israel
Hezbollah has not abandoned its fanatic destructive ideology, nor does it lack the military capability to attack and inflict great pain on Israel Lebanon and probably the most influential political party (I personally believe that Hezbollah is the real government) and precisely because it is so powerful, and wants to remain so, it can not afford the risk getting into a new war with Israel Israel wouldn't stop the Israelis from battering Hamas; at best it would only defy Israel ’s sense of security and for which Lebanon
Similarly in Gaza Israel Israel , and not particularly to show the Israelis that they have failed, but rather to remind them that the situation hasn’t changed; Gaza is still under siege and as long as Gaza
Prudence is not peace but it’s the best available chance to stop the killing of civilians and destruction and perhaps to save the wounded hope of peace from the rubble of Gaza
Your Palestinian friend, faithfully.
A letter from Gaza
A friend from Gaza sent this email today:
Dear friend
Last night passed as a hell on our area , where I live (For the one who knows Gaza : The house of President AbuMazen is the 2nd House adjacent to my House , where I live ) .
From my point of view , may be the Israeli Army started it's 3rd stage , or Israel wanted to send a message to Hamas and Egypt by escalating the bombardments using every mean , but using Tanks artilleries in a very wide range .
It was the hardest nights passed until now , not because of the excessive force , but also because it was very close to my resident .
When it comes to 7:00 O'clock in the morning war looks to be reduced ,as the tanks returned back to their previous positions , and ambulances started moving to search for injuries and corpses !
As per Israeli radio , there were 60 targets been stroked and killed a reasonable number of Palestinian resistance fighters ( I presume that the majority of these targets were just close to me ) . Among these targets it was the residence of the Hamas ( Qassam) military leader ( Ahmed Ja'abari- at Shajae'yya quarter ) .
It is worth mentioning that Hamas succeeded to launch only 12 rockets yesterday on the Israeli far Cities ( Beer Shebaa , Ashkelon , Nitivot , and Ashdod ) , taking into consideration that the small range rockets on Sederot are rare in the time being .
Yesterday there were extra Palestinian civilian victims , when a 5 story residential building at East of Jabalia been stroked and 6 persons of the same family found killed under the residuals of their building ( Family name : Abed Rabbo) .
Not including the number of casualties of the last night , number of victims comes to 854 among them 352 children , and 93 women , and the injuries number comes to about 3500 among them 1300 children , and hundreds of severely injuries ( An interview with Dr. Mo'away Hassanain – Head of Emergency and ambulance services with BBC at 23:30) .
Psychologically persons began to behave nervously , and children began to cry more and insist to sleep close to their parents .
I my self sleep in one room on the ground with : my wife , my youngest son(19years) , the wife to my eldest son , my eldest son in addition to his 2 children : 4 years , and a baby of one month .
Yesterday while the German foreign minister was accompanied with his Egyptian colleague visiting the cross border in Rafah , there was a big bombardment on the smuggling tunnels which led him to leave the area , but safe , although there were shrapnels dropped on the Egyptian side of the borders .
I do hope that the international community and UN can force the sides to cease fire , as it is enough !!
The "Other Voice"
A week ago I travelled down to the town of Sderot near the Gaza border with a group of activists from the Forum of Peace NGOs . Not something most people in Israel would do these days because Sderot is still (or rather once again) on the receiving end of improvised Qassam rockets fired from Gaza. We went to meet a local group called the "Other Voice" whco have the courage to challenge the accepted Israeli militaristic way of thinking and to empathize with the fate of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in spite of their own suffering.We were hosted by a member of the group, Nomika Zion, who shared her feelings with much emotion. This is a translation of a piece she wrote on 8th Jan 2009
War Diary from Sderot
“I speak with the people of Sderot and the flush has returned to their cheeks” boasted Fuad [Ben Eliezer, Labour Knesset member and Israel’s current Minister of Infrastructure] to Razi Barkai [presenter of a popular news programme on Israel Army Radio] on the second day of the war. “The heavier the war is, so the heart opens”. But we are not all Fuad, not all of us. And I too am a lonely voice in the greater Sderot area, and I am not Fuad, and he should know about it. Not in my name and not for me did you go into this war. The bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name nor for my security. Houses destroyed, schools blown up, thousands of new refugees – they are not in my name or for my security. In Gaza, there is no time for funerals; the dead are put in refrigerators two by two in the mortuary for lack of room. The bodies of policemen and children are laid out and the eager journalists jump between the tactics of pro -Israel advocacy and “the pictures that speak for themselves”. Tell me, what is there to explain? What is there to explain?
I did not buy myself security or peace and quiet in this war. After such an essential period of calm that enabled us (the residents of Sderot) to recover psychologically and to experience sanity again, our leaders have returned me to that same gashed and anxiety-filled place. To the same demeaning experience of running petrified to the protected space (Since the 1980’s Israeli building regulations require all new homes to have a room with thick concrete walls that will withstand bombs - called a "protected space").
Don’t misunderstand me. Hamas is a bad and terrible terror organisation. Not only for us. First and foremost for their citizens. But behind this accursed leadership live human beings. Laboriously, simple people on both sides build small bridges of human gestures. So did the “Other Voice” group from Sderot and the surrounding-Gaza region ( of which I am a member) when it sought to pave a human path to the hearts of its neighbours. While we took advantage of a 5-month lull, they suffered under the millstone of the siege. A young man told us that he does not intend to get married and have children, because in Gaza there is no future for children. In the brandishing of one fighter plane’s wings, these gestures plunge to the depths of blood and despair.
I am afraid of the Qassam rockets. Since the current war started I have hardly dared to go beyond the bounds of our street. But I am much more afraid of the inflammatory and monolithic public and media discourse that is impossible to penetrate. It scares me when a friend from the “Other Voice” is verbally attacked by other residents of Sderot while being interviewed and expressing a critical opinion about the war, and afterwards gets anonymous phone calls and is afraid to return to his car for fear that something will happen to him. It scares me that the other voice is such a small one and that it’s so hard to express it from here. I am prepared to pay the price of isolation but not the price of fear.
It frightens me to see my town lit up, as if for a festival and decked out with Israeli flags, groups of supporters distributing flowers in the street and people sounding their car horns in joy at every ton of bombs that’s falling on our neighbours. I am frightened by the citizen who admitted to me, with a beaming face, that he never attended a concert in his life but that the Israel Defence Forces bombs is the sweetest music to his ears. I am frightened by the haughty interviewer who doesn’t question his worlds by one iota.
I am frightened that, underneath the Orwellian smokescreen of words and the pictures of [Palestinian] children’s’ bodies that are especially blurred for us on TV as a public service, we are losing the human ability to see the other side, to feel, to be horrified, to show empathy. With the code word “Hamas” the media paints for us a picture of a huge and murky demon that has no face, no body, no voice, a million and a half people without a name.
A deep and gloomy current of violence seeps through the dark pores of Israeli society like a grave illness, and it gets worse from one war to the next. It has no smell and no shape but one feels it very clearly from here. It is a kind of euphoria, a joy of war, lust for revenge , drunkenness on power and burial of the Jewish command “Do not be joyful when your enemy falls”. It is a morality that has become so polluted that no laundry could remove the stains. It is a fragile democracy where you have to weigh every word with care, or else.
“And who guarantees us that it is even possible to destroy Hamas? Didn’t we try this maneuver somewhere else? And who will take the place of Hamas? Worldwide fundamentalist organisations? Al-Qaida? And how will there spring from the ruins and the hunger and the cold and the dead the moderate voices of peace? Where are you leading us to? What future do you promise us here in Sderot? And for how much longer will you hang on our shoulders the “backpack of lies” laden with all the worn-out clichés? “There is no partner”, “A war of no choice”, “Let the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) finish the ‘work’”, “One good blow and we’ll finish them off”, “Destroy the Hamas” and “Who doesn’t want peace?”. The lie of power and futility of even more power as the only guide to solving problems in the region.
And why is it that every instant interview with a representative of the “Other Voice” always starts and ends with the punchline question “Don’t you think you are naïve?” How does it happen that the option of dialogue and negotiation and the quest for agreements and understandings has turned into a simile for naiveté, and that the option of force and war is always the sensible rational ultimate alternative? Have not eight years of a pointless cycle of violence taught us anything about the naiveté of the use of force? The IDF mowed down and destroyed and shot and razed and hot and missed and bombarded – and what do we get in return? A rhetorical question.
It’s unbelievably difficult to live in Sderot these days. During the night the IDF crushes the infrastructure and the people in Gaza, and the force of their bombing causes the walls and the houses to shake. In the morning we get hit by Qassam rockets, ever more sophisticated. Somebody who goes to work in the morning doesn’t know if he’ll find his house in one piece in the evening. In the afternoon we bury the best of our young who gave their lives for yet another “just” war. In the evening we succeed, with difficulty, in getting through to our desperate friends in Gaza. There’s no electricity there, no water, no gas, no food, nowhere to escape to. And only the words of N., a 14 year old whose school was bombed and whose friend was killed and who writes us an email in perfect English that her mother succeeded with difficulty in sending “Help us , we are humans after all”.
No, Fuad, my cheeks are not rosy, not rosy at all. A ton of cast lead (Cast Lead is the name that the IDF has given to the “operation” in Gaza) weighs on my heart , and my heart is too small to contain it.
Nomika Zion
State of Israel = State of War
Although I have lived in Israel for 35 years now and participated (passively) in 4 wars and 2 Intifadas, the penny has only now dropped for me that Israel is actually is a permanent state of war with only rest periods in between. This is amusingly (and terribly) illustrated by Doron Rosenblum's column in last Friday's weekend magazine of the Ha'aretz newspaper .
The wars and periods of unrest that I can remember:
- 1967 - the 6 Day War , the glorious defeat of the Arab Goliath by Israel's David. Some of us now realise that that the colonisation of millions more Palestinians as the result of Israel's conquests in that war was the start of Israel's moral decline.
- 1970- 1972 War of Attrition (along the Suez Canal). A cousin of mine was killed in this war
- 1973 - Yom Kippur War. Israel won on points but the Arabs , especially the Egyptians consider this war a glorious victory for themselves
- 1982-1985 The 1st Lebanon War. Then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon (later Prime Minister and now in a coma) thought he could change the regime in Lebanon. He was wrong. 500 Israeli soldiers and countless Lebanese and Palestinians paid with their lives
- 1987-1992 The first Intifada - popular uprising by the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories against Israeli occupation. The Jewish Israelis were genuinely surprised at this uprising "But we gave them new roads, clinics and jobs"
- 1991 The Gulf War - Israel was a passive participant , being on the receiving end of Scud missiles from Saddam Hussein's Iraq
- 2000 - 2005 The second Intifada -a second Palestinian uprising characterized by far greater use of arms and terror attacks (mostly suicide bombings) against Israeli civilians
- 2006 The second Lebanon War , against the Hezbollah. Inconclusive.Over 1000 Lebanese killed, 300 Israelis killed (soldiers and civilians)
Why has the penny dropped only now?
- A newspaper article after the first week of the current Gaza war included a melancholy note by the writer that he just realised that our wars are like the Thirty Years' War or the Hundred Years' War that we read about in the history books.
- The last war (the 2nd Lebanon War in 2006) was the first one I felt directly and which got to me real bad. I live in Haifa in northern Israel and for 33 days we were under a constant barrage of missile attacks. For a nice Jewish boy from London to feel the fear of death when the air-raid siren goes off is a profound shock.
- Only two and a half years have passed since the last war
- Especially after the "glory" of Israel's victory in the 6-Day War, we had an expectation that the Israeli Army can work miracles and and bring us either victory or peace. We always thought that this war (whichever it was) would be the last . The last few wars (and the current one) have shown that to be illusory.
- I have gotten to a reflective age where , at best, I am entering the last one third of my life. With great reluctance and sadness I accept that I am unlikely to see peace in Israel/Palestine in my lifetime.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Tel Aviv - Gaza, 08.01.09 by Adi Ophir, Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University
The assault on Gaza started on Saturday morning, December 29th. In the early afternoon some activists used emails and sms to call for a demonstration in down town Tel Aviv. Almost 2000 people gather that evening in front of the cinemateque and then walked to the defense ministry compound. Almost every day since there has been a demonstration somewhere, in both Arab and Jewish sectors (including demonstrations in four of the five Israeli universities), but the media report almost only about Arab demonstrations. Even when many Jews are also involved the media describes the even as an expression of national Palestinian struggle instead of portraying it as a civic event in which Jewish and Palestinian citizens in solidarity with the people in Gaza are trying to put up an opposition to their government. Many Arab activists were arrested even before the demonstrations have started, as a preemptive measure; hundreds were arrested during the demonstrations, of whom many remained in custody for several days. It is clearly a policy – to suppress this opposition, portray it as a nationalist, anti-Israeli event, and silence it in the name of public morale in times of war – and the media fully cooperate with the police.
At the same time the internet is full with alternative news, and emails with descriptions of the horrors in Gaza are distributed regularly. It is not clear how many are exposed to this kind of information. Critics have had a better access to the printed media than to the electronic media, especially to Tel Aviv's local newspapers. Haaretz too has published several critical articles, some of them very harsh. The Zionist left, (Shalom Achshav, Meretz) that publicly and loudly supported the war started calling for a cease fire after a week of fighting. Opposition to the war is not considered good for electoral purposes and with the election only a month from now the good Zionists too are cautious not to appear un-patriotic. But even if you consider them as part of the opposition and add up all these oppositional voices you still get a tiny minority which is marginalized systematically.
The police's effort to suppress the radical left is quite new, I think, but it is not the only new thing that gradually becomes clear. What is also new is the open way so many enjoy, let along tolerate the killing of civilians. There is a sense of satisfaction, even joy among Jewish Israelis. A dozen Israelis killed so far, civilians and soldiers combined, the number of people killed in car accidents in an average week. Palestinians suffer tremendously. In Gaza almost 800 have been killed and thousands injured. In fact, the precise number is probably higher because the Palestinians based their counting on reports from hospitals. They don't count those who are still buried under the rubble.
Body count is of the essence, because there are no clear objectives to this assault. Since victory would be elusive any way, and since the Hamas is going to win due to the mere fact that it won't be eradicated and it will emerge from the war as a power that will have survived the attack of the most powerful army in the region, a power that has already enforced a new agenda and must be reckoned with by all other players, death and destruction remain the only possible indicators of the Israeli sense of victory. The low number of Israeli casualties is also important for the continuation of public support for the "war". Everyone wants it to be as economic and as "clean" as possible. In order to achieve this goal the soldiers' hands should be really dirty. Unidentified commanders speaking to Haaertz from inside Gaza explained how they proceed: with a lot of force. You do not come close to a suspicious house without firing on it first, with a missile, with a tank, then tear off one of its walls with an armored D 9 (a huge tractor), and only then look to see who is inside, of anyone is still alive. It's urban warfare without moral gloves.
These dirty hands however, miraculously go with clean consciousness. Every once in a while a bomb or a shell hits a house and eliminates an entire family. This goes almost unnoticed here. On Wednesday (Jan 7th) they shoot from the sea at an UNRWA school where many refugees from the bombarded surroundings had found shelter. At least 40 civilians were killed. It turned out that targeting a school and killing 40 civilians in a stroke is still enough to make a headline and some stir. The army's response to the news was telling. First they released a video of Palestinians firing rockets from the building, but they late had to admit that the video was taken in 2007 and the incident filmed in it took place when the school was empty. The second attempt to defuse the accusation of a war crime came in the morning papers: Hamas leadership, so the army intelligence claimed, is hiding in the basement of Gaza's main hospital. The implied argument is clear: they use their population as human shields and can't blame us for targeting civilian institutions. And this piece of "information" that nobody can check and very few care to doubt or question as a form of a moral argument was enough to make the horror at UNRWA school disappear.
After the massive bombardment the army resumed the practice of targeted killings. This practice had started even before the ground assault begun and then has accompanied it from above. In the past the IDF was usually careful to target its victims with "smart missiles" that are supposed to have limited "environmental damage", but now they use 1 ton bombs that smash entire buildings in a second. Last week they "eliminated" a "major" figure in the Hamas. The operation was closely observed by the attorney general, who approved every detail of it. They bombed that man's house despite the fact that they knew that many children and women lived there. The guy had 4 wives and 12 children. 2 of the wives and 11 children are dead now. They say that there was a lot of ammunition in the basement and that the international law of war permits such an operation. They also say that they gave the family a warning of a few minutes in which they could have left the house, but the fanatics insisted on staying. Within a few minutes warning you can't get very far from the bombarded area anyway, and how could they eliminate that prominent figure if they really gave enough time to escape? What gives them legal justification is the ammunition. Now imagine the attorney general of the "Democratic Jewish State" asking the intelligence commander: how much ammunition? How many children? And then imagine how he calculates: "so much dynamite is enough to justify the death of one child and so many rockets - that of one woman." It is the same attorney general that gave legal authorization to the cutting of electricity and fuel supply to Gaza about a year ago. Then too he calculated. He wanted to make sure the hospitals could still operate before he gave his authorization for the new means of catastrophization of the region.
So even in the midst of this assault, some killings from the air are still supervised by the legal authorities. Following a Supreme Court ruling on targeted killing (that approved the tool with certain reservations) it has become necessary to get the lawyers involved in the killing operation. The legal apparatus withdrew from Gaza after the "disengagement" with all other Israeli state apparatuses. Only the army has remained, surrounding the Strip to maintain the siege, turning Gaza into a human pen. Students or sick people who have appealed the army's decision to refuse their requests to get out of Gaza for studies or medical treatment have been consistently denied any assistance at the court, because the responsibility of the Israeli sovereign in their case has been terminated with the disengagement,. Still, the legal apparatus has not disappeared altogether – it is there as a mechanism of authorization. And a very flexible one at that. The military experts set the rules; the legal experts find the right words for them, rarely forcing minor changes that do not change anything.
The involvement of the lawyers has become much less significant when the ground assault has started. In fact it is hardly visible at all. It is much more difficult to inject legal considerations in the midst of a rolling attack on the ground, with so many forces, conflicting information, and many decisions to be taken by the spur of the moment. Legal reason can hover in the air; at times it may even precede the jets and slow them down. On the ground, it is moral reasoning that takes its place, yet almost always a-posteriori. This kind of reasoning does not concern many today yet it is still the business of many intellectuals and a facon de parler of some journalists, who often raise the moral question as if in order to get a quick, straightforward answer and get rid of the issue. The prevalent moral argument goes more or less like this: It's not about their children but about ours. The government has a duty to protect its citizens (the duty of the Israeli sovereign to its Palestinian subjects has been denied since the Oslo accorded, but in the Gaza Strip after the "disengagement plan" it has been wiped out altogether - in fact this was one of the main purposes of that plan). And no matter how notoriously deadly our self-defense appears to be, the argument still sticks. In order to save one Jewish child one is ready to sacrifice the lives of 100.000 of theirs. The number may vary of course; 100.000 is the figure I heard this morning with exactly this formulation from a colleague, a distinguished professor of Hebrew and Yiddish literature. He was speaking in public, very conscious of and proud in his position.
The moral argument comes with readymade moral dilemmas: You see a terrorist running, carrying a child – would you shoot him? Some would say yes, some would say no, some would say: I wouldn't know before I'll be there. Being there is the first question of course, and it is hardly questioned. Passing through the dilemma is a good exercise for moral hygiene and cleansing of conscious. One immediately forgets about the political logic of the moral situation, about the forces that impose such dilemmas in the first place, and about the many decisions one has to take before coming to the moment of that seemingly inevitable moral decision. It's a win-win situation. If you decide that shooting is justified you have based your murderous act on moral grounds – you are not a "cog in the machine" who follows order automatically; if you decide that shooting is not justified in this particular case your hands are clean and your conscious shining and you would be shooting with relief and determination in less embarrassing cases, for example when you don't see the child because he was hiding behind a wall.
Alongside the moral argument there is the ideological one. It is all too familiar. We are different from them; they kill indiscriminately while we don't; they want to eliminate us together with the entire Western civilization while we are only defending ourselves. Since our very existence is at stake (and they are not ready for any compromise that would let us live here in peace) we are locked in a war unto death. It's either us or them, all of us or all of them. We don't want to kill so many of them, of course, but we have no choice. Actually, it’s not us - it's their own ideology that kills them. It's a tragedy, the more liberal Zionist would say, but they have only themselves to blame for what is happening to them. Since they are totally uncompromising, the only way to deter them is to make it so painful for them that they would think twice before shooting at us again. Only we don't know exactly how many bodies would deter them. 750 dead – the number is rising as I am writing – several thousand injured, and immense destruction of houses and infrastructures have not deterred them so far. Hence it is necessary to call on more reserve soldiers and widen the scope of this assault. It’s a war, "the most justified of our justified wars" said our president, the dear peace maker Shimon Peres, and we have no choice.
Justification aside, this is not a war. The assault resembles an expedition of a colonial power that goes out of the colonists' enclave to teach a lesson to rebellious barbaric tribes. The kind of raids known from 19th century colonial wars; the kind of raids South Africa conducted often in the seventies and eighties against its neighboring countries. Only now the natives not the colonists are in the enclave. The Jewish colonists have turned the entire Palestinian territory into a series of enclaves, more or less separated from each other, and from "Israel proper" (which includes not only the territory west of the 67 border , "the green line," but also most of the Jewish settlements east of the green line). Different enclaves are treated differently. They are more or less "external" to the Israeli mainland, more or less forsaken by the Israeli sovereign and its governmental apparatuses. Gaza is an enclave of a special kind and status. It is an enclave that has turned into a frontier, a no man's land and an experimental field for man's hunting and for a gradual, more or less controlled destruction.
It is not this assault that has turned Gaza into a human pen. The closure started in the 1991 Gulf war, released somewhat during the Oslo years, tightened forcefully when the second Intifada started in October 2000, and then, after the disengagement in August 2005, turned into a full fledge military siege. Without employing much power, simply by closing the Strip, preventing the movement of people and commodities, restricting the flow of gas and electricity, letting the already collapsing sewage system to collapse, Israel has turned the Strip into a zone of emergency. Seasonal outbursts of direct military violence that recur at least once a year since 2002 ("operation defense shield") multiple victims but do not change the basic structure of Israeli domination. In the zone of emergency the entire population has lost – in the eyes of the Israeli sovereign – its political status and has become a mixture of terrorists, suspects, and clients of humanitarian aid. As such Gaza is a laboratory of catastrophization. The present assault is not a war of one army against another, neither a war of a regular army against a guerilla organization, and not even or not simply a war of a regular army against an armed militia. Notwithstanding intentions and justifications, the scope of destruction and the number of civilian casualties are first and foremost a temporary change in the mode of catastrophization: airplane bombs are add to the closure, artillery shells go hand in hand with the cut of electricity and the destruction of the swage system. Catastrophization and not the infliction of a large scale disaster, because the humanitarian corridor is always open. Israel will not let a true humanitarian catastrophe happen in Gaza. There are no final solutions in this conflict, and there won't be anyone here as well. Israel governs Gaza by an ongoing measured and calculated catastrophization that becomes more brutal, deadly and shameless with each wave of violence. More is yet to come.
Adi Ophir
The Home Front
In the "good old days" of the early 20th century and before most wars were proxy affairs as far as the civilian population was concerned, fought by regular armies on battlefields usually conveniently far from population centres. In the Second World War both sides learnt the "value" of inflicting casualties and damage on the civilian population. And so was born the concept of the Home Front. The Americans learnt to their cost in Iraq since 2003 that it was a lot easier to win a war against a convential army and much, much harder to win the peace once the battleground moved to the markets and the mosques, the towns and the cities.
Israel's first wars (after the War of Independence) were conventional affairs between conventional armies and it is only in recent years that the civilian population in Israel has been under attack. In the misguided, unplanned and mismanaged War against the Hezbollah in 2006 - see http://hezbisraelwar.blogspot.com/ the Israeli home front found itself quite unprepared for the onslaught of Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon.
The Winograd Commission which was appointed after the 2nd Lebanon war to investigate the may foul-ups reported extensively on the lacunae of the home front management and it seem that the Israeli Army has learned a thing or two. They now have an exhaustive website complete with video. YouTube and Facebook next? War as a way of life.
In the "good old days" of the early 20th century and before most wars were proxy affairs as far as the civilian population was concerned, fought by regular armies on battlefields usually conveniently far from population centres. In the Second World War both sides learnt the "value" of inflicting casualties and damage on the civilian population. And so was born the concept of the Home Front. The Americans learnt to their cost in Iraq since 2003 that it was a lot easier to win a war against a convential army and much, much harder to win the peace once the battleground moved to the markets and the mosques, the towns and the cities.
Israel's first wars (after the War of Independence) were conventional affairs between conventional armies and it is only in recent years that the civilian population in Israel has been under attack. In the misguided, unplanned and mismanaged War against the Hezbollah in 2006 - see http://hezbisraelwar.blogspot.com/ the Israeli home front found itself quite unprepared for the onslaught of Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon.
The Winograd Commission which was appointed after the 2nd Lebanon war to investigate the may foul-ups reported extensively on the lacunae of the home front management and it seem that the Israeli Army has learned a thing or two. They now have an exhaustive website complete with video. YouTube and Facebook next? War as a way of life.
Conversations from a dinner party
Last night Irit and I were invited to the 70th birthday party of a friend from Haifa. The party took place in a large and luxurious house in one of the expensive suburbs north of Tel Aviv. I don't know whether anyone had dilemmas about having the party during a war but I suspect not. We were about 90 minutes drive from Gaza where dozens of Palestinians are getting killed every day and where Israeli soldiers are risking their lives day and night.
I had two conversations at the party about the war with friends, white Caucasian upper middle class Jewish Israeli males about 70 years old, one a physicist, the other a dentist, both gentle, pleasant, thinking people. I suspect that if I hadn't brought up the question of the war , it wouldn't have arisen.
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I suppose you want it to end. Most people (i.e. Jewish Israelis) want it to continue
Me: Do you think about the war?
He: Only when I watch the news on television
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I'm very disappointed
Me: Disappointed?
He: It can't work. The world won't accept that there are 700 Palestinians killed and only 6 Israelis killed. The only way we could beat them is by killing a huge number but that's not practical
Me: Not practical ?!!
He: I mean the world won't let us do it.
After a bit more prodding, he did say that this option is not moral, but practicality was evidently the prime consideration and morality the secondary one.
Irit would argue that such comments do not reflect what Jewish Israelis really think but but just that everyone is frustrated and doesn't know what to do and that Jewish Israelis would make far-reaching concessions for a guaranteed and durable peace. I wonder.
Last night Irit and I were invited to the 70th birthday party of a friend from Haifa. The party took place in a large and luxurious house in one of the expensive suburbs north of Tel Aviv. I don't know whether anyone had dilemmas about having the party during a war but I suspect not. We were about 90 minutes drive from Gaza where dozens of Palestinians are getting killed every day and where Israeli soldiers are risking their lives day and night.
I had two conversations at the party about the war with friends, white Caucasian upper middle class Jewish Israeli males about 70 years old, one a physicist, the other a dentist, both gentle, pleasant, thinking people. I suspect that if I hadn't brought up the question of the war , it wouldn't have arisen.
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I suppose you want it to end. Most people (i.e. Jewish Israelis) want it to continue
Me: Do you think about the war?
He: Only when I watch the news on television
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I'm very disappointed
Me: Disappointed?
He: It can't work. The world won't accept that there are 700 Palestinians killed and only 6 Israelis killed. The only way we could beat them is by killing a huge number but that's not practical
Me: Not practical ?!!
He: I mean the world won't let us do it.
After a bit more prodding, he did say that this option is not moral, but practicality was evidently the prime consideration and morality the secondary one.
Irit would argue that such comments do not reflect what Jewish Israelis really think but but just that everyone is frustrated and doesn't know what to do and that Jewish Israelis would make far-reaching concessions for a guaranteed and durable peace. I wonder.
Friday, January 09, 2009
In Tel Aviv they're celebrating
Once a week I come down from Haifa to Tel Aviv to meet my two grown-up daughters. We usually meet in a restaurant for Saturday lunch. I tried to book this week and was told by two restaurants that they are full up. Life goes on and in Tel Aviv the restaurants are evidently full. I imagine we wouldn't need a reservation for a restaurant in Gaza, Beersheva or Sderot.
Once a week I come down from Haifa to Tel Aviv to meet my two grown-up daughters. We usually meet in a restaurant for Saturday lunch. I tried to book this week and was told by two restaurants that they are full up. Life goes on and in Tel Aviv the restaurants are evidently full. I imagine we wouldn't need a reservation for a restaurant in Gaza, Beersheva or Sderot.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A new day dawns
(in the current Gaza war)
I had literally just finished my last post(see below) when I received the following news flash by SMS on my mobile phone "This morning: Katyusha rockets fired in the north"
This, to remind you, was the central motif (for us civilians in northern Israel) of the 2nd Lebanon War in which several thousand missiles were fired by the Hezbollah in Lebanon at random (i.e. civilian) targets in Israel. In the course of that war about 150 Israeli civilians, 150 Israeli soldiers and over 1000 Lebanese were killed. The destruction to property in southern Lebanon by Israel Air Force bombings and Israeli army artillery was enormous,
During that war (now known as LW2 - Lebanon War 2) our lives in Haifa and northern Israel were completely disrupted. Sometimes the air raid sirens went off several times a day and we went scurrying to our air raid shelter (most Arabs in Israel and Lebanon don't have such a luxury). The way I found to handle it was by writing a blog which received a certain amount of international media attention (CNN and BBC) .
At the beginning of LW2 I was cool, treating it like a boy's adventure. As the war continued (seemingly interminably although it was only for a month) it got to me more and more, and, as soon as I heard the first few bars of the air-raid siren wail, I was gripped with fear and despair. Ever since then some part of me has been waiting in fear for that ominous wail to reappear.
And now maybe it might. It's bad enough for the residents of the far north of Israel who had years of Katyusha attacks, like the unfortunate residents of Sderot in the south who have suffered years of Qassam missile attacks from Gaza.
I told my significant other in laughing desperation about the SMS I received this morning and her immediate angry, afraid reaction was "I don't care what they (the international community) say. We should send bombs and kill them all. It's either them or us. There's no other way."
Now this is the reaction from an educated, loving, liberal person who works in one of the caring professions. I don't think that she seriously, rationally proposes that we annihilate the 10 million or so Arabs who live within bombing range of Israel but it shows how afraid she is and how desperate many of us Jewish Israelis feel.
(in the current Gaza war)
I had literally just finished my last post(see below) when I received the following news flash by SMS on my mobile phone "This morning: Katyusha rockets fired in the north"
This, to remind you, was the central motif (for us civilians in northern Israel) of the 2nd Lebanon War in which several thousand missiles were fired by the Hezbollah in Lebanon at random (i.e. civilian) targets in Israel. In the course of that war about 150 Israeli civilians, 150 Israeli soldiers and over 1000 Lebanese were killed. The destruction to property in southern Lebanon by Israel Air Force bombings and Israeli army artillery was enormous,
During that war (now known as LW2 - Lebanon War 2) our lives in Haifa and northern Israel were completely disrupted. Sometimes the air raid sirens went off several times a day and we went scurrying to our air raid shelter (most Arabs in Israel and Lebanon don't have such a luxury). The way I found to handle it was by writing a blog which received a certain amount of international media attention (CNN and BBC) .
At the beginning of LW2 I was cool, treating it like a boy's adventure. As the war continued (seemingly interminably although it was only for a month) it got to me more and more, and, as soon as I heard the first few bars of the air-raid siren wail, I was gripped with fear and despair. Ever since then some part of me has been waiting in fear for that ominous wail to reappear.
And now maybe it might. It's bad enough for the residents of the far north of Israel who had years of Katyusha attacks, like the unfortunate residents of Sderot in the south who have suffered years of Qassam missile attacks from Gaza.
I told my significant other in laughing desperation about the SMS I received this morning and her immediate angry, afraid reaction was "I don't care what they (the international community) say. We should send bombs and kill them all. It's either them or us. There's no other way."
Now this is the reaction from an educated, loving, liberal person who works in one of the caring professions. I don't think that she seriously, rationally proposes that we annihilate the 10 million or so Arabs who live within bombing range of Israel but it shows how afraid she is and how desperate many of us Jewish Israelis feel.
Update 9 Jan
Irit admitted that she didn't seriously propose mass killing as a solution but that her outburst was an expression of the anger and frustration that israelis feel at the endless war and danger in which we find ourselves.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Random conversations
on a random day during the current Gaza war
He: (when I arrived at a work meeting) How are you?
Me: Very troubled (by the war)
He: Do you have anyone inside? (this is Jewish Israeli speak for "Do you have a personal connection to anyone in the (Israeli) army who is fighting in Gaza?")
Me: (I expected a different question from someone who has dedicated much of his life to promoting the concept of universality of suffering) Yes, I have a million and a half Palestinians inside (refers to the fact that 1.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip live under siege in a virtual prison, unable to enter and leave at will)
He: Oh.
She: (his wife) Now everybody's had their share - in the Gulf War, it was Tel Aviv, (that was attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles) in Jerusalem we had our bus bombs, (multiple Palestinian suicide attacks 2001-2004) they got it (Katyusha rocket attacks) in the north in the (2nd) Lebanon war (2006) and now they're getting it (various frequent missile attacks) in the south (in the current Gaza war)
He: (another humanist) If they (the Palestinian population of Gaza) teach their children not to value life and to want to be martyrs, aren't they all Hamas?
Me: What does it matter, it doesn't give us legitimacy to destroy a million and a half people
He: I guess you're right
Me: I really hope they're going to agree on a ceasefire
She: (works in the Israeli news media and has been working very long hours since the start of the Israeli military operation in Gaza) I just hope they have a 48-hour ceasefire on Friday and Saturday so that I can get some rest.
on a random day during the current Gaza war
He: (when I arrived at a work meeting) How are you?
Me: Very troubled (by the war)
He: Do you have anyone inside? (this is Jewish Israeli speak for "Do you have a personal connection to anyone in the (Israeli) army who is fighting in Gaza?")
Me: (I expected a different question from someone who has dedicated much of his life to promoting the concept of universality of suffering) Yes, I have a million and a half Palestinians inside (refers to the fact that 1.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip live under siege in a virtual prison, unable to enter and leave at will)
He: Oh.
She: (his wife) Now everybody's had their share - in the Gulf War, it was Tel Aviv, (that was attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles) in Jerusalem we had our bus bombs, (multiple Palestinian suicide attacks 2001-2004) they got it (Katyusha rocket attacks) in the north in the (2nd) Lebanon war (2006) and now they're getting it (various frequent missile attacks) in the south (in the current Gaza war)
He: (another humanist) If they (the Palestinian population of Gaza) teach their children not to value life and to want to be martyrs, aren't they all Hamas?
Me: What does it matter, it doesn't give us legitimacy to destroy a million and a half people
He: I guess you're right
Me: I really hope they're going to agree on a ceasefire
She: (works in the Israeli news media and has been working very long hours since the start of the Israeli military operation in Gaza) I just hope they have a 48-hour ceasefire on Friday and Saturday so that I can get some rest.
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