Deir Yassin Reflected

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

This morning I went to Deir Yassin with Eitan Bronstein. We met a group of eleven Internationals and Eitan led a two-hour discussion about the Nakba, Deir Yassin, Zochrot and Eitan's own journey away from his zionist upbringing towards educating the Hebrew-speaking Israeli public regarding the Nakba. I was very happy to hear Eitan talk; it was the first time I had heard him publicly speak in English and I learned a lot.

On the way to Jerusalem (Deir Yassin is in Jerusalem) I asked Eitan about the Palestine Remembered website. Specifically, I asked him why the fact sheet says 94 people were massacred and in the stories and memories section it says 250 / 254 etc. His answer was one I had never thought of. He said that, in fact, there were 93 recorded names of victims (Zochrot had a ceremony in 2004, reading all the names from a list then posting the list outside the gates to the mental hospital (what Deir Yassin now is...the list is NOT there anymore). The 250 number comes from the Haganah (now the Israeli Defense Forces...IDF), who assisted the Irgun and Stern gangs (celebrated Israeli terrorist groups) in the slaughter. They exaggerated the number to use for the purposes of fear. And the Palestinians accepted those numbers because it goes along with the nature of the horrible atrocities. Eitan told me that the New Historians have revealed that the death toll was actually in between 110 and 140. He said a good website is the official Deir Yassin site: http://www.deiryassin.org/

Just a word on the New Historians. A man named Benny Morris wrote a book (I am not sure if it is his 1991 book called 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians or an earlier one that was a landslide). He uncovered much of what really happened in Israel / Palestine. The short story is that he changed the way historians in Israel "do history." That is not to say he is a shining beacon of human rights and truth. No, alas, he is a committed zionist, who unashamedly still says that if the right time presents itself, then Israel needs to be completely emptied of all Arabs. At any rate, there has been a movement of uncovering the truth, since then, and this academic community is called the New Historians. Many are not zionists and they struggle to keep day jobs in a country where being un-zionist is unpopular - tantamount to employment and political suicide.

I also was able to ask Eitan about Judiasm and zionism. It was my understanding that there weren't any religious Jews who were not connected with the land in a nationalistic sense. He corrected me and told me that the zionist Judaism is a chauvenist Judaism (I'm not sure what he meant by that...the name Zochrot is the feminine form of the Hebrew word, Remember). But, he said, there are Jews who have my "Christian" understanding of social justice and caring for the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow, etc. He told me about a rabbi who said to him that Zochrot is doing "God's work." I found that very warming.

Back to Deir Yassin. Eitan told me that Ben Gurion, while still Prime Minister, knew that Deir Yassin would be remembered so he came up with a plan to try to erase the memory. He would turn it into a mental hospital and close it off from the public, thereby barring anyone from being able to put up a memorial and have the massacre officially remembered. I am pretty sure that the reason why Deir Yassin is so significant in the minds of Palestinians is because of how much the propaganda machine of the zionists concentrated on using the massacre to instill fear in Palestinians and drive them out of their homes. I have read that in the days after the massacre, the Haganah drove around Jerusalem in sound trucks saying, "Unless you leave, your fate will be the same as Deir Yassin." There were many such Deir Yassin-type atrocities, however; not just the one.

Eitan told our group today that even the idea that there was a war inside Palestine in 1948 can be very strongly contested. There were very few Palestinian villages who organised themselves and tried to fight the Israelis. By far the majority of them had white flags hanging out of windows and in the centres of villages to show they would not attack. It did not matter. As for Palestinians fighting zionists in 1948, there was a faction of Palestinians, under the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who attacked the main corridor between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to cut off the Jewish supplies route, among other things. They were not trained like the Haganah; and they did not stand a chance against them. Interestingly enough, al-Husseini died on April 08, 1948, in a neighbouring village of Deir Yassin, really demoralising Palestinians.

The actual warring went on between different Arab nations and the zionists. The Palestinians, themselves, were by and large, peaceful and not violent against the zionists. By and large. I found all of this fascinating. For me, it tempers the miraculous claims that "against all odds" Israel was established. I don't know, I suppose it was against all odds because the Palestinians sure didn't see it coming. I do not know enough about this to comment further.

After we finished our discussion with the group, all thirteen of us climbed up a stone wall and into the derelect Deir Yassin cemetery, outside of the hospital grounds. It is derelect because Israel will not allow any caretaking of it. There is a Muslim organisation that seeks to preserve such Palestinian sites; but they are not allowed to preserve this one. The graves were all broken. We saw a freshly shattered tombstone today. Eitan told us that he has been in there when young Jewish boys came running up, laughing, and showed them some Palestinian bones that had become exposed. They were laughing about Arab bones. He then told the group about how, in Israel, nearly every week, there is a story on the tv news about how a Jewish cemetery was defaced in Poland, or Germany, or somewhere else and how it is an outrage. He told us how he had phoned the Municipality of Jerusalem and many newspapers trying to get them to take seriously the Deir Yassin cemetery and allow Palestinians to honour the dead by being allowed to keep it cared-for. He was told that no one cares and nothing would be done. What else is also very ironic, the largest Holocaust memorial in Israel is just over a kilometre away from Deir Yassin.

In regards to Eitan's personal journey, he told how he was born in Argentina, moved to Israel with his family when he was five and raised on a kibbutz. He knew that there were piles of rubble near his kibbutz but all he was ever told was that they were Crusader ruins (a very popular story here); but that years later he found out that the ruins were, actually, a destroyed Palestinian village. He said that having these questions in his mind began to make him more sensitive. The turning point, he said, was when Israel invaded Lebanon for "peacekeeping," which is a outright lie. He, and many others, refused to invade and attack innocents in Lebanon and he spent some time in prison. Eitan said that he really struggled with the decision to turn his back on being a soldier (for he, to his shame, was an excellent soldier).

Then, during the first intifada, he refused to go to the West Bank and was jailed a couple of more times. He said it was easier these times because he had already decided. During the second intifada, when 13 Israeli-Arabs (Palestinians who live within the borders of 1948 Israel and have citizenship and a difficult, racist-laden existence) were killed by the IDF, he had decided that enough was enough and knew that as a Jew he needed to reach other Jews and talk about the Nakba and the occupation. He said a very interesting thing: that he does not see the good of constantly having joint Jewish / Palestinian NGO's and groups for peace. He knows that the Jews are the problem of there being no peace so why should he drag the Palestinians into his peace efforts. He, as a Jew, should be reaching Jews. The fact is, there are many Palestinian-Israelis who are involved in Zochrot, even on staff. We are very involved with Palestinian-Israeli groups and individuals; but not involved with the West Bank Palestinians for various reasons. One is that it is very difficult for Israelis to enter the West Bank, now. Another is that there are many groups working with the West Bank and Eitan feels that the problem lies with the Jews, who need to face the truth and deal with the real history, and be freed from the zionism that they all learn in school.

I want to add something that has been really revealing itself to me over the past few weeks. There is no good from getting people to empathise and sympathise with the Palestinian plight if they are only going to hate the Jews. Love and forgiveness must win out. I go out of my way to nod to all sorts of people because I am trying to realise this in myself. I will talk with soldiers, not even telling them what I do, but just looking them in the eye, showing them respect and trying to see their humanity, for my own sake. I do find it difficult to love Israelis when I get all turned around over the ongoing injustices to the Palestinian peoples. But that was what was so freeing about my bike ride last night. In the midst of being all torn up inside, I was seeing the beauty of humanity and value in the Tel Aviv folk down by the Yarkon river.

I know that for me it is easy to be polemical and to take an extreme side. But I find that it takes less commitment to do that. I don't have to work through the difficult issues if I just write off all Israelis, or all Americans, as villains, or whatever. What takes great effort is to love a people that is stiffnecked and difficult. What takes much commitment to peace is to find the humanity in someone that I don't want to; someone I want to villify. I find my swirling emotions to be teaching me much, especially as I seek to use Jesus as my example of human rights. He said crazy things, like Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And, Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called sons / daughters of God. Sometimes the statements of Jesus that I read seem like paradoxes that make no sense; other times I find pearls of great value in them. Like the two I mentioned, I don't think I have the eyes, yet, to see them true in this land - the very land He delivered them in.

Sorry for being so heavy-duty. I hope to have some funny stories soon enough. But it is what it is....non?

ps. my toes are basically healed up, now; and I've got a helmet. I also finished my first video clip, about Bir'im, this afternoon, so look for it in the next couple of days on www.zochrot.org I am working an figuring out how we can stream the videos so folks with dial up don't have to wait around for it to download. I'll let you know; although the videos we have are not much more than 10MBs, which isn't that much.

Peace in the Middle Eass!

Burro.

A Bike Ride At Night

August 29, 2005

I went for a bike ride tonight, to try to process the words that I read about Deir Yassin. Even though I have been told many times, since coming here, about the massacre at Deir Yassin, there is something about reading personal testimonies. I felt sick to my stomach after reading the testimonies on the palestineremembered.com site; maybe because I have a very vivid imagination or because I have a very sensitive spirit, maybe both.

I didn't bring my map of Tel Aviv with me and didn't really want to know where I was going. I just headed north on rehov Ibn Gvirol (a main street near my flat) until I happened across the Yarkon river. I have seen it on my map before and thought about venturing that way sometime. It was just what I needed tonight; it was beautiful. I rode over foot bridges covered in lights, passed couples strolling hand in hand, eyed up packs of pretty of puppies, looked at friends sitting on blankets or benches having some beer and chatting in the night.

But still, contemplative thoughts kept coming back to me. The thought of how many people there are in the world hovered over me. How many stories. I would look at a couple sitting on a bench, arms enwrapped, and I would think that their lives are meaningful. They have jobs, interests, friends, frustrations, ideosyncrasies, personal problems, fascinations, ambitions, dreams. I kept on looking at people and thinking that there was someone, somewhere, who would be ecstatic to see them. I saw people engaged in what looked like deep conversations, with intense looks on their faces, waving arms and straight posture. I couldn't take my eyes off of people. People. Everyone, even loudmouths, are immeasurably valuable. I know it sounds very melancholic; but it didn't make me sad; it affirmed to me the mystical unity and love within human relationships.

I watched faces and knew I wasn't blaming them for the massacre at Deir Yassin. That's the problem: who, or what do I blame? I looked at couples laying in the grass by the riverside and thought about how normal everything looked; nomal to me, that is. I thought about how something inside of me wants veangence for the Palestinians. Something wants justice. But as I pedaled and tried to work through these issues I kept thinking about the injustice and ongoing unresolved strangling of the First Nations people in Canada.

No, the fact that Canada is not militarily oppressing the First Nations peoples of our land does not slight the severity of the oppression. A few weeks ago I watched a piece of news on the National (CBC) about northern Ontario communities of First Nations and how they are completely cut off from the country. They never see outsiders and many will never leave their small village. I know about the First Nations in British Columbia and how they live on Reservations, quietly packed away from all of us "Canadians."

Nothing makes sense. Not the persecution of the Jews over the millenia. Not the ongoing chokehold Israel has on Palestine. Not the forgotten slaughtering of Native Americans in the United States. Not the Reservations in Canada. I don't claim to be enlightened on anything. I don't even feel like I know much. In fact, the more I read, the more I think, the more I talk with others, the less I feel I know. Sometimes I get a moment of clarity but usually I am confused and bewildered about the mysteries of love, the ravages of war, the free will of humanity, and God's involvement in it all. I can get lost in these thoughts; then the depression sets in.

I followed the river west until it ran into the ocean. Then I continued on a road until I decided to cruise through some apartment-block streets. The buildings were all new and the cars were shiny. I pedaled hard, trying to tire myself out, trying to get rid of the images in my mind, trying to still the whirring thoughts in my head. I kept saying my version of the Jesus Prayer over and over, emphasizing the different words and trying to let them fill my mind and imagination. I cruised around museums and theatre houses, letting the streets lead me back to my apartment.

As I walked up the stairs to my place, I stopped outside of Apartment 8, where Wallace the cat was scratching at a welcome mat. I gave him some scratches of his own on his ears and his neck. Then, as I came up the final flights and entered my flat, his cries for love or food were slowly drowned out of my ears.

Deir Yassin / Dayr Yasin

Hello,

Tomorrow morning Eitan Bronstein and I are going to Deir Yassin. It was a village right near Jerusalem that was attacked by Jewish terror gangs on April 9, 1948 and roughly 250 Palestinian men, women and children were massacred.

Now it is a mental hospital and offbounds to the public. I have no idea how we're going to get in or what we are doing there. Eitan did not explain that to me on the telephone.

I went to a NGO friend of Zochrot's website to do some reading up on Deir Yassin (hebrew spelling) and I was horrified by what I read.

I don't bring this to you for the sake of shock; but I feel it important that we face the tough facts of history, especially to have a context for understanding things today.

I invite you to look at the following link:

http://palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Dayr-Yasin/index.html

If you so choose, you can scroll down the page and read the information. I do want to give you fair warning, the Stories and Memories section is graphic and disturbing.

I am going for a bike ride right now. I have to process my thoughts and feelings.

Darren

Canadian Arabs article

Aug. 25, 2005
Who will weep for Palestinians?
What Arab Canadians say about eviction of Gaza settlers

HAROON SIDDIQUI

I asked three Arab Canadians for their reactions to the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.

· Khaled Mouammar, Richmond Hill. A Palestinian Christian from Nazareth, his family became refugees in 1948. He is a former president of the Canadian Arab Federation.

"Where were these 900 international journalists in the last five years while the entire physical infrastructure of Gaza was being destroyed? "We see weeping settler girls and women being interviewed. But there were rarely any interviews with the thousands of Palestinian women and girls who've had their houses bulldozed, their family members killed or imprisoned. "The settlers are being compensated between $200,000 and $300,000 (U.S.) per family. It's not that they don't have a place to go to. They are going back to their country. "

But millions of Palestinian refugees have been in exile for decades. Many are destitute. They have no status. Many are in the Israeli-occupied areas where no one cares about their suffering, humiliation and continued dispossession. "In Albert Camus's The Plague, the French settlers in Algeria have feelings, emotions and experiences. But the Algerians are always in the background, as shadows. Today, human life and suffering does not matter if you are Arab, Muslim or from a Third World country. "When will the dispossession and dehumanization of Palestinians get a headline? "Still, decent human beings in Canada and elsewhere know of this injustice and feel strongly about it. That's why the Palestinians will ultimately overcome."

· Sarah Karmi, Toronto.
A Palestinian Muslim who came to Canada from Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War, she is chair of the Canadian board of directors for Project Hope, an NGO working with children and youth in war-stricken regions.

"The coverage of the Gaza evacuations may lead some to believe that considerable concessions have been made by Israel in the name of peace and stability. But the reality is that the disengagement doesn't even come close to being sufficient. "The departure of 8,500 settlers is undermined by a net increase of about 10,000 settlers in the West Bank every year. "Israel remains in occupation of internationally recognized Palestinian land, in open violation of countless United Nations resolutions.

"Since 1967, about 7,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished, leaving about 50,000 homeless. Hundreds of thousands of acres have been confiscated for illegal settlements. "The killing of Palestinians continues. So does the construction of the separation barrier, annexing more Palestinian land and further fragmenting the West Bank. There are severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinians through curfews, checkpoints and roadblocks that obstruct education, economic viability and the provision of basic medical and humanitarian assistance. "These injustices should not slip the global consciousness on account of the recent evacuation."

· Raja G. Khouri, Toronto. A Christian born in Lebanon to parents who lost their homes in Palestine in 1948, he is a former president of the Canadian Arab Federation and the author of Arabs in Canada: Post 9/11.

"An Israeli settler screamed at reporters: `You don't know what it's like to be driven out of your home and not be allowed to return to your land.' I do. Millions of Palestinians do. "Leaving Gaza rids Israel of 35 per cent of Palestinians living on 6 per cent of Israeli-occupied land. Keeping the land and getting rid of the people has always been the Israeli way. "By maximizing control over as much Palestinian land with as few Palestinians as possible, Israel minimizes the `demographic threat' — the growing number of Muslims and Christians living in Israel and the territories it controls.

"While the 8,500 Gaza settlers will be handsomely compensated, about 55,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem are being separated from their schools, hospital, jobs and places of worship by the wall, with no consideration for their rights and livelihood, let alone the right to compensation. "As it encroaches into the West Bank and Jerusalem, the wall increases land on the Israeli side while leaving Palestinian populations in fragmented cantons. "Even if some version of a Palestinian state does emerge, it will lack water resources, arable land, contiguity, economic viability and the means to control its destiny. I can't help but feel that Palestinian national aspirations are doomed."

Haroon Siddiqui, The Star's editorial page editor emeritus, writes Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1124920223606&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

The Real Victims of the Withdrawal From Gaza

Hello, the following is an article, found in the online magazine of Ha'aretz (www.haaretz.com). I offer it to you.

the url is: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/617299.html

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Ayesha, the widow of Osama Tawafsha, with her children (clockwise from top), Moussa, Lamaa, Muasab, Rewan and Arij. (the description of the attached photo -DB).

The orphans of Sinjil

By Tom Segev

They may have been the victims of a crazy man. Their murderer, Asher Weisgan, has been sent for psychiatric observation. But perhaps Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the one who is really to blame for their deaths: Weisgan had spoken a great deal recently about the withdrawal plan; dismantling the settlements in Gush Katif made him very upset. Whatever the case, the great, tear-jerking reality show that took place this week in the Gaza Strip didn't leave any room for the tears of the orphans left by the four Palestinian workers murdered last week in the settlement of Shilo - nine boys and seven girls. Within a few days, their story had disappeared from the media as though it had never happened.

Ayesha Tawafsha believes that her husband Osama, his brother Bassam and their two friends, Mohammed Mansour and Halil Walwil, were murdered because the Jews hate the Palestinians. That is what she will tell her children when they grow up and ask what happened to their father, she said this week.Her mother corrected her: Not all the Israelis are like that, but the 26-year-old widow didn't change her mind: She will tell the children all the Jews are murderers. The oldest of the children of the murdered men, Abdel Rauf Walwil, is 21 years old; the youngest, Moussa Tawafsha, was born four months ago. One of the girls, 6-year-old Rewan, turned to her grandmother this week and asked for a shekel, so she could go to Ramallah and bring a new father from there. She is a blond child with light eyes, maybe a scion of the Crusaders.

Their village, Sinjil, perpetuates the name of Raymond de Saint Gilles, the prince of Toulouse, who came to Palestine on one of the Crusades, and established an estate here. The inhabitants followed his religion, until Saladdin came, and then they became Muslims. The village lies in a hilly biblical landscape about 14 kilometers north of Ramallah, and is surrounded by groves of olives and figs. This area was the front line that during World War I separated the Turkish armies from the British army, and the Jewish Legions camped here, too. And how many more wars has Sinjil known since then; the Haaretz archive shows that Israeli settlers attacked the village in the past as well.

A good guy

Osama Tawafsha worked at Ortal Aluminum Industries Ltd. in Shilo for 15 years; his father was among the laborers who built the settlement. But when the intifada broke out, they told him there was no more work for him.

Afterward they called him back. He worked in the manufacture of door and window frames, and he seemed to be proud of his work, since he was often photographed at the plant, and he framed the pictures; he also had his picture taken with his Jewish friends, some of them new immigrants from Russia. Two days before he was murdered, he asked his wife to bake her special pitas in the taboun, with za'atar and olive oil, as well as another favorite dish, at the request of a Jewish co-worker, Asher.

Asher Weisgan, a resident of the settlement Shvut Rahel, a 38-year-old man with a family, had worked in the plant in the past, but left and went to work as a security guard. A few months ago he returned. There were no problems in the relationship with him, recalls one of the workers at the plant, Rawhi Qassab, this week. But as the withdrawal from Gaza approached, he spoke more about politics, how much he wanted to enlist even the Palestinians against Sharon's plan.

"If they took you out of your home, wouldn't it be hard for you?" he asked Qassab. "Of course it would be hard," said Qassab. He thought about the Palestinians who were forced to part from their plots of land because of the settlements, but he didn't say anything. Recently, Weisgan said that he had a large plot of land; Qassab wondered how exactly he had obtained it. Weisgan wanted to plant olive trees, and asked Qassab to get 300 saplings for him. Qassab said he might be able to bring him one or two saplings. Not 300. He thinks that Weisgan managed to plant his olive grove on his own.

The settlement Shvut Rachel is named after Rachel Druck, who was murdered in October 1991 by a Palestinian terrorist, together with Yitzhak Rofeh. Rawhi Qassab, from the village of Qariot, can see the settlement from the window of his home; more than once he was a guest of Asher Weisgan. A good guy, he said this week; the Palestinian workers called him Abu Moussa. Sometimes he would come to work with a weapon. Who are you afraid of, Abu Moussa, the Arab workers would ask him. Weisgan replied that he had to protect his children. Three days before the murder, Qassab noticed that Weisgan was wearing a small, light brown skullcap. The next day, Qassab asked him why he had suddenly become religious. Weisgan replied that he was embarrassed to walk around his settlement without a skullcap.

Aside from that he behaved as usual; no, not crazy, not at all, emphasized Qassab. On Wednesday, Weisgan bought him a package of Noblesse cigarettes, in return for the home-cooked food Qassab had brought him, by request, from Sinjil. But at the end of the day, when they approached the car that was supposed to take them home, Weisgan suddenly said: "I want to die."

Rawhi Qassab asked why, since Abu Moussa had a wife and children, wouldn't it be a shame? Weisgan said: "It's no life this way," and Qassab didn't reply. "That's your problem," he thought, and for a moment recalled that in the morning Weisgan had told him that he was sending his wife and children to her parents, in Jerusalem. "I want to be by myself," he explained. A few minutes later he began firing.

A common grave

As often happens, the details are not completely clear; with what type of weapon did the murderer shoot, how many bullets, from which direction, who was killed first and who next, and where. Rawhi Qassab was wounded in the face. The rest happened as it does everywhere.

The relatives heard about the attack from television. They tried to reach their loved ones on their mobile phones. Bassam Tawafsha's phone kept on ringing, and then stopped. He was killed immediately. Osama was transferred by helicopter to the hospital, but didn't survive. His mother and his wife and his brother Sami rushed meanwhile to the entrance of the settlement of Shilo. They weren't allowed to enter, but photographers surrounded them; they didn't know why. For a while they still believed that things would be all right, because people said that the dead had worked in a plastics plant. They didn't know anything, until an officer who identified himself as Captain Rabia arrived, and asked - who is from the village of Sinjil? Who is Tawafsha? They identified themselves, and the officer said - so it's you. Stand on the side.

Afterward they received permission to come to Abu Kabir to identify the body; they traveled to Jaffa by taxi. Meanwhile, several Hamas activists came to their homes and asked for pictures of the shaheed brothers, in order to enlarge them for mourning posters. They chose old pictures, because in their younger days, brothers Bassam and Osama had sported beards; they were religious, but after the intifada they used to come to work without beards. They were buried in one grave; they lived together and died together, and they will remain together in paradise, said the widow. "Daddy is dead," she says to her son Muasab, and Muasab, not yet three years old, says, "No, he's not, Daddy is sleeping," but she says once again: "Daddy is dead."

Victims

They may have been the real victims of the withdrawal, but I have never known how to interview bereaved children: not in Cambodia and not in Cuba, not in Ethiopia and not in South Africa, not in Israel and not in the territories. With Rawhi Qassab it was easier; when he came back from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, he slaughtered a sheep.

His employer, Eli Ben Asher, came to visit him in the hospital. You don't have to pay, promised Ben Asher, the government will pay for everything. But before his release, Qassab was asked to pay NIS 6,500 for the hospitalization. At the end the hospital made do with an IOU. Najib Abu Rakia, the research coordinator in the human rights group B'Tselem, advised the families to hire an attorney who would demand what they have coming to them as terror victims.

Rawhi Qassab thinks that Asher Weisgan did not act alone, but was part of an organized conspiracy, whose aim was to prevent the withdrawal. He believes that the Sinjil orphans are the real victims of the withdrawal. He thinks that Weisgan should sit in jail for the rest of his life; he reckons that he'll get two years imprisonment at most, because he is a Jew.

Qassab is aware of the great outcry in the wake of the murder in Shfaram; it happened in an Israeli city, at least part of the quick condemnation was designed to prevent riots in the Israeli Arab sector on the eve of the withdrawal. This week, on the other hand, was the week of self-pity. The tears flowed until they reached foreign countries. The commercial British Channel 4 station broadcast a report by Nurit Kedar that described the settlers as victims of Israeli politics, and Elie Wiesel transmitted the whining of the settlers to The New York Times. A.B. Yehoshua told readers of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth that he cannot escape the eyes of the settlers' children.

The settlers exploited their children to the hilt, lifted them up in front of the soldiers, and some of the children were sent in front of the cameras with their hands raised, like that child in the Warsaw Ghetto. This was an audiovisual show consisting entirely of pictures from other places, from the Temple in Jerusalem to "Fiddler on the Roof," carefully staged political kitsch, with a lot of extras, children. It soon developed into complaints about the quality of room service in the hotels to which the evacuees were taken. But A.B. Yehoshua was beside himself.

"After I turned off the television and wanted to revive my sprit with classical music, the looks and the eyes of the little children continue to haunt me, and I feel that I have to do something to deal with the emotions that are welling up in me," wrote Yehoshua. "Yes, this look of the children is now piercing my heart, and I don't know what to do with the emotion that is awakening within me." I would recommend to Yehoshua that he listen to a little more classical music, but if that doesn't revive his spirit - thinking about the orphans of Sinjil should help.

Bicycles are dangerous, too

Yo, Yo, 'Sup,


So, I knew it would happen eventually; and now that it is over, I feel relieved.

I got in my first bike accident tonight.

Totally Big Lebowski style, too. I was riding along, minding my own business, doing my own thing, when I ran straight, smack-dab, into a garbage receptical. I flew off my bike, over the handlebars and landed in the street. Some cars swerved around me and a guy in a shop looked at me. I gave him the thumbs up as I picked myself up off the pavement. I stood up, brushed myself off and looked my body over. There was blood pouring from both of my feet. Obviously I was concerned and inspected a little closer.

I cut the top of both of my big toes right off. It's not as bad as it sounds, even though I bled like crazy and had to wash my flip-flops out when I got home. Fortunately I have some PolySporin and put it on my toes after scrubbing them with soap (with my eyes squinted shut for the pain). I am hobbling around my apartment and figure that I will have to switch to shoes for a few days. My feet don't hurt, as in pain, they just ache, like a headache in my feet; although when I was scrubbing them clean it was agony.

The most ironic part is that I had just finished having a conversation with a friend where he challenged my lack of helmet. I told him that I am a very competent rider and won't fall. He said that I might feel dorky with a helmet on, but I would feel more dorky when my brains were splattered on the pavement. It is a good thing that the other end of me ended up splattered; it was still shocking enough that I plan on buying a helmet.
I am now in the dilemma of whether to bandage up my bloody toes for the night, or to sleep with them exposed to air. I don't know....

I am sorry that I don't have any profound stories for you; the wind is temporarily out of my sails. In my hurt-toes-ness, I am missing the normalcy of Sam's house and KP's house, too.
At least I got a beautiful e-mail from my nephew, Jack. That made me feel a million times better

Today, at work, I logged some more videos into the computer and had lunch with the gang and Sri (MCC Jerusalem Rep.). I looked at some office chairs with Talia, at a local store, and realised just how much comfort is worth. My back has been killing me for a couple of days because I have a crummy chair at work and crummy chairs at home - things need to change or I might as well move to Notre Dame...if you get my point.

I went to the beach after work for a sunset swim. It was nice, although all day I have felt introspective and somewhat melancholic. I wonder if when all of you read my e-mails if you just smile to yourselves and say "oh, that's nice, Darren." I wonder if you think that what I am doing is inconsequential and benign.

Let me tell you, though, that today, a reporter from THE GUARDIAN (an English Leftish newspaper) came to the office to look for leads and resources. I got to sit in on most of the conversation and when they asked me how I felt, I told them that daily I tremble, feeling something greater than myself and a part of something VERY important. I don't expect you folk, in North America, to understand what I am exposed to, or the truths that I am learning. I know that you have learned history a certain way. I learned the same history...about how Israel was formed as a modern miracle and how the zionist Jews turned an empty land from fruitlessness to fruitfulness.

I, too, learned the "history" that the Jews were ruthlessly attacked by the surrounding Arab nations...but I have learned, here, that all that I learned regarding this "history" was false. Some kind of grand conspiracy to fool all the "good citizens of the West" to gain sympathy for a cruel militaristic regime. it saddens me when I receive e-mails or telephone conversations from people who feel the need to defend national Israel. I keep wondering what it is that propels such a desire to claim Israel as the victim and Palestinians as "bad" and "dirty." I don't know the answer; but I do know that I used to, too, hold those opinons. Maybe the Bible stories; maybe the whiteness of the West; I'm not sure.

I have felt patronised by some people about what I am doing. But, I think, the truth is that I am part of something historical; something greater than I can ever express. That's what I told the reporters today: that everyday when I go to work I feel this emotion inside of me that sometimes drives me to tears but always makes me feel this sense of urgency, like I am part of something HUGE; something that will affect the entire world. And for that, not only do I feel privileged, but VERY grateful.

Anyway, my feet throb, so I end this off.

Peace in the middle Eass,
Burro D Block OUT

Resources For Independent Study

Hello All,

My buddy Tim has done it again! This time he has sent me a list of books and videos, building on the list of website references he sent to me the other day.

He has sent two lists, a short one and a long one. Have at 'er folks, if you wish....

Just passing along a great resource!

DB

Recommended Readings (short list):

• Naseer Aruri, Dishonest Broker: America’s Role in Israel and Palestine (South End Press, 2003).

• Naseer Aruri, ed., Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (Pluto Press, 2001).

• Naim Stifan Ateek, Justice and Only Justice (Orbis Books, 1987).

• Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscapes: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 (University of California Press, 2000).

• Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians (The Pilgrim Press, 2003).

• Roane Carey and Jonathan Shainin, eds., The Other Israelis: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New Press 2002).

• Elias Chacour, Blood Brothers (Chosen Books, 1984).

• Noam Chomsky, Middle East Illusions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)

• Marc Ellis, Out of the Ashes (Pluto Press, 2002).

• Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza (Henry Holt, 1998).

• Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (Beacon Press, 2004).

• Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Columbia University Press, 1997).

• Ilan Pappe, History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

• Mitri Raheb, I Am a Palestinian Christian (Fortress Press, 1995).

• Mitri Raheb, Bethlehem Besieged (Fortress Press, 2004).

• Tanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (Seven Stories Press, 2002).

• Edward Said, End of the Peace Process (Pantheon, 2000).

• Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (Vintage Books, 1980, 1992).

• Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Penguin Books, 2000).

• Donald E. Wagner, Anxious for Armageddon: A Call to Partnership for Middle Eastern and Western Churches (Herald Press, 1995).

Recommended Readings (long list):

• Lama Abu-Odeh, “The Case for Binationalism” (Boston Review, 26/6).

• Alternative Tourism Group, Palestine & Palestinians, (ATG, 2005)

• Naseer Aruri, Dishonest Broker: America’s Role in Israel and Palestine (South End Press, 2003).

• Naseer Aruri, ed., Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (Pluto Press, 2001).

• Susan Atallah and Toine van Teeffelen, eds., The Wall Cannot Stop Our Stories: Diaries from Palestine 2000-2004 (Terra Sancta School for Girls, Sisters of St. Joseph, 2004).

• Susan Atallah and Toine van Teeffelen, eds. Your Stories Are My Stories: A Palestinian Oral History Project (Arab Educational Institute, 2001).

• Naim Stifan Ateek, Justice and Only Justice (Orbis Books, 1987).

• Naim Stifan Ateek, Marc Ellis, and Rosemary Ruether, eds., Faith and the Intifada (Orbis Books, 1992).

• Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscapes: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 (University of California Press, 2000).

• Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians (The Pilgrim Press, 2003).

• Roane Carey, ed., The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid (Verso 2001).

• Roane Carey and Jonathan Shainin, eds., The Other Israelis: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New Press 2002).

• Elias Chacour, We Belong to the Land (Harper Collins, 1990).

• Elias Chacour, Blood Brothers (Chosen Books, 1984).

• Noam Chomsky, Middle East Illusions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)

• Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle (South End Press, updated edition 1999).

• Uri Davis, Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (Zed Books, 2004).

• Marc Ellis, Out of the Ashes (Pluto Press, 2002).

• Marc Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation (Orbis Books, 1987).

• LeRoy Friesen, Mennonite Witness in the Middle East: A Missiological Introduction (Mennonite Board of Missions, 1992).

• Jeff Halper, Obstacles to Peace: A Re-Framing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (PalMap, 2003).

• Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza (Henry Holt, 1998).

• Amira Hass, Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land (MIT Press, 2003).

• Tony Judt, “Israel: The Alternative” (New York Review of Books, 50/16, 23 October 2003).

• Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (Beacon Press, 2004).

• Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Columbia University Press, 1997).

• Walid Khalidi (ed.), All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).

• Yehezkel Lein, et al, Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank (B’Tselem, May, 2002).

• Nur Masalha, Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Pluto Press, 2003).

• Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).

• Donald Neff, Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995).

• Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON), Stop The Wall in Palestine: Facts Testimonies, Analysis, and Call to Action (PENGON, 2003).

• Ilan Pappe, History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

• Michael Prior, ed., Speaking the Truth About Zionism and Israel (Melisende, 2004).

• Rosemary Radford and Herman Ruether, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Harper & Row, 1989).

• Mitri Raheb, I Am a Palestinian Christian (Fortress Press, 1995).

• Mitri Raheb, Bethlehem Besieged (Fortress Press, 2004).

• Tanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (Seven Stories Press, 2002).

• Edward Said, End of the Peace Process (Pantheon, 2000).

• Edward W. Said, Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (Vintage, 1995).

• Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (Vintage Books, 1980, 1992).

• Raja Shehadeh, When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (Profile Books, 2003).

• Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Penguin Books, 2000).

• Nancy Stohlman and Laurieann Aladin, eds., Live from Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action against the Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 2003).

• Donald E. Wagner, Anxious for Armageddon: A Call to Partnership for Middle Eastern and Western Churches (Herald Press, 1995).

• Donald E. Wagner, Dying in the Land of Promise: Palestine and Palestinian Christianity from Pentecost to 2000 (Melisende, 2003).

• Alain and Sonia Weaver, Salt and Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC 1999).



Recommended Videos

• Stuck with the truth (Canadian Friends of Sabeel, 2002). Palestinian Christians speak of the reality of Israeli occupation. Available from all MCC offices.

• Walking the path Jesus walked (MCC, 2002). Hear Christians from Syria, Palestine, and Egypt share their faith, and learn about the enduring, vibrant witness of the historic Christian churches in the Middle East.

• The Dividing wall (MCC, 2004). Features Palestinians whose lives have been devastated by Israel’s separation barriers and highlights the voices of Palestinians and Israelis who work for a future of bridges instead of walls.

• Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (Media Education Foundation, 2004). Provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Children of the Nakba (MCC, 2005)…


MCC Resources for Further Study

• Middle East Resource Box for Children. Produced by MCC. One part of the box presents the West Bank, with stories and photos of present-day Palestinian children. Also includes a curriculum on Iraq.

• “A Middle East Reader” is a booklet produced by MCC which gives basic information on the Middle East, its religions, major political players and conflicts.

• “Sisters, Friends—Middle East Reader on Women” is a booklet produced by MCC that introduces Middle Eastern women with a kaleidoscope of stories. The stories written, by MCC women, describe their encounters with Middle Eastern women, women much like themselves who have become their sisters and friends.

• “Country Profile: Occupied Palestinian Territories.” A Common Place. September/October 2004 (including the Hello publication for children).

• “Walling Off the Future for Palestinians and Israelis.” MCC Peace Office Newsletter, 34(3). July-September 2004.

• “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land.” MCC Peace Office Newsletter, 35(3). July-September 2005.

• Alain Epp Weaver, “Constantinianism, Zionism, Diaspora: Toward a Theology of Exile and Return” (MCC Occasional Paper #28, 2002).

• Alain Epp Weaver and Sonia Weaver, Salt and Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC, 1999).

• Sonia K. Weaver, What Is Palestine / Israel: Answers to Common Questions (MCC, 2004).

• Video: “Walking the Path Jesus Walked” (MCC, 2002). See above.

• Video: “Dividing Wall” (MCC, 2004). See above.

• Video: “Children of the Nakba” (MCC, 2005). See above.

Resource List For Independent Study

My friend and co-MCCer, Tim Seidel, is a wealth of information and accessible resources. He provided me with the following list.

Please feel free to scroll through the list of various links, reading things of particular interest. There is something to be said, for sure, about being able to look at a variety of sources and really "see for one's self."


Recommended Websites:

MCC Palestine Partner Organizations:

· Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: http://www.stopthewall.org/
· Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem: http://www.arij.org/
· BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugees’
Rights: http://www.badil.org/
· Culture and Free Thought Association: http://www.palnet.com/~cfta/
· Holy Land Trust: http://www.holylandtrust.org/
· Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/eng/
· Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People: http://www.rapprochement.org/
· PENGON – Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network: http://www.pengon.org/
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center: http://www.sabeel.org/
· Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center: http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/
· Zochrot Association: http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/

Middle East News:

· Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt): http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
· Al-Jazeera.net: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
· Arabic Media Internet Network (Palestine): http://www.amin.org/eng/index.html
· The Daily Star (Lebanon): http://www.dailystar.com.lb/home2.asp
· Dar Al-Hayat: http://english.daralhayat.com/
· Haaretz (Israel): http://www.haaretz.com/
· International Middle East Media Center (Palestine): http://www.imemc.org/
· Jerusalem Post (Israel): http://www.jpost.com/
· Jordan Times (Jordan): http://www.jordantimes.com/
· Palestine News Agency – Wafa (Palestine): http://english.wafa.ps/
· Palestine News Network (Palestine): http://www.palestinenet.org/english/
· Today in Palestine (Palestine): http://www.theheadlines.org/
· YnetNews – Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel): http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html

Middle East Commentary and Analysis:

· Americans for Middle East Understanding: http://www.ameu.org/index.asp
· Challenging Christian Zionism: http://www.christianzionism.org/
· Churches for Middle East Peace: http://www.cmep.org/index.html
· Catholic Near East Welfare Association: http://www.cnewa.org/
· Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Israel and Palestine (EAPPI): http://www.eappi.org/eappiweb.nsf/index.htm
· Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding: http://www.emeu.net/
· Foundation for Middle East Understanding: http://www.fmep.org/
· Guardian Unlimited Special Report Israel and the Middle East: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/0,2759,377264,00.html
· Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/ID/2.cfm
· If Americans Knew: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
· Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): http://www.merip.org/
· United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA): http://www.un.org/unrwa/
· U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
· UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/
· Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA): http://www.washington-report.org/
· ZNet Middle East Watch: http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/meastwat.cfm

Palestinian Sites:

· Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition: http://www.al-awda.org/
· Al-Haq – Defending Human Rights in the OPT since 1979: http://asp.alhaq.org/zalhaq/site/home.aspx?ln=en
· Ali Abunimah’s Bitter Pill: www.abunimah.org/
· Voices from the Bethlehem Ghetto: http://www.bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com/
· Bethlehem Media Net: http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/
· The Electronic Intifada (ei): http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml
· Ibdaa Cultural Center: http://www.dheisheh-ibdaa.net/
· Jerusalem Media and Communications Center: www.jmcc.org/
· MIFTAH – Palestine Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy: http://www.miftah.org/
· Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: http://www.pchrgaza.org/
· Palestine Chronicle Weekly Journal: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
· Palestine Media Center (PMC): http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
· Palestine Media Watch: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/index.asp
· Palestine Monitor: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
· Palestine Remembered: http://www.palestineremembered.com/
· Palestine Report: http://www.palestinereport.org/
· Palestine Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA): http://www.passia.org/
· Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO): http://www.pngo.net/
· PLO Negotiations Affairs Department: http://www.nad-plo.org/index.php
· Sharing the Land of Canaan: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/

Jewish Sites:

· Americans for Peace Now: http://www.peacenow.org/
· Bat Shalom – Women with a Vision for a Just Peace: http://www.batshalom.org/
· B’tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights: http://www.btselem.org/English/
· Gush Shalom – Israeli Peace Bloc: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
· HaMoked Center for the Defence of the Individual: http://hamoked.org.il/index_en.asp
· Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
· Jews Against the Occupation: http://www.jatonyc.org/
· The New Israel: http://www.thenewisrael.com/
· Not in My Name: http://www.nimn.org/
· Occupation Magazine: http://www.kibush.co.il/index.asp?lang=1
· The Other Israel: http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/
· PEACE NOW: http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25
· Rabbis for Human Rights: http://www.rhr.israel.net/
· Tikkun – A Jewish Magazine, an Interfaith Movement: http://www.tikkun.org/

Joint Palestinian-Israeli Sites:

· The Alternative Information Center: http://alternativenews.org/
· Bitterlemons.org – Palestinian-Israeli Crossfire: http://www.bitterlemons.org/
· Bitterlemons-international.org – Middle East Roundtable: http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/
· Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information: http://www.ipcri.org/
· Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salaam www.nswas.com/
· The Parents’ Circle – Families Forum: http://www.theparentscircle.com/
· Ta’ayush: http://www.taayush.org/

General News:

· BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
· Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/
· Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/
· Democracy Now!: http://www.democracynow.org/
· Guardian Unlimited: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
· Indian Country Today: http://www.indiancountry.com/
· International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/pages/index.php
· Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
· New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
· Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=globaltop
· WAMU 88.5 American University Radio: http://www.wamu.org/
· WBUR – Boston’s NPR News: http://www.wbur.org/

General Commentary and Analysis:

· AxisofLogic Activism, News and Comment: http://www.axisoflogic.com/
· The Christian Century: http://www.christiancentury.org/
· Common Dreams News and Views: http://www.commondreams.org/
· Commonweal: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/index.php
· Counter Punch: http://www.counterpunch.org/
· First Things: http://www.firstthings.com/
· Foreign Affairs: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
· Foreign Policy: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
· Informed Comment: http://www.juancole.com/
· International Crisis Group – Conflict Prevention and Resolution: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm
· Media Monitors Network: http://world.mediamonitors.net/
· The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/
· The Progressive: http://www.progressive.org/
· Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/
· Sojourners – Christians for Justice and Peace: http://www.sojo.net/
· TomPaine.com: http://www.tompaine.com/
· Z Magazine: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
· Dissident Voice: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/

Mennonite:

· anabaptist.org: http://www.anabaptist.org/
· Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT): http://www.cpt.org/
· Mennonite Central Committee (MCC): http://www.mcc.org/
· MCC United Nations Focus Area – Israel Palestine: http://www.mcc.org/un/israelpalestine/
· MCC Washington Office – Bridges Not Walls Index: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/index.html
· MCC Palestine: http://www.mcc.org/areaserv/middleeast/palestine/index.html
· Mennonite Church Canada: http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/
· Mennonite Church USA: http://www.mennoniteusa.org/
· The Mennonite – News, Articles and Discussion Resources: http://www.themennonite.org/
· Mennonite Quarterly Review: http://www.goshen.edu/mqr/
· Mennonite Weekly Review Online: http://www.mennoweekly.org/
· MennoLink: http://www.mennolink.org/
· Mennonite.net: http://www.mennonite.net/

22-08-05

Several people have been asking me lately how I really am. How is life with Zochrot and in Tel Aviv? I appreciate questions like that and rather than write several responses, or copy the same response to those inquirers, I decided to make it the focus of my next e-mail to "all y'all."

Life is. One month ago, today, I stepped off the plane.

It is goood; it is niiice; it is goood and niice.

There is so much stuff going on in Palestine / Israel, right now, I am feeling a little guilty being so damn comfy and happy over here, hitting up the beach, riding my bike around, loving my work, having meaningful times alone and with God, and hanging out with my new friends at Zochrot.

Speaking of Zochrot, I love it. I really do. Protester types (here, they're called the Radical Left of Israel / Palestine...I call 'em pippies) are all weirdos, with quirks and quarks; but that just endears me to them even more; I fit right in. They think my germophobia is hilarious and tonight I got the whole inquisition about how I use a public toilet. I was accused of being the worst (as in poorest) Obsessive/ Compulsive my friend Talia had ever met. Anyway, back to the marginalised and passionate - a kickass combination.

The folks I work with in the office are really cool and I get along with them wonderfully. I am also really liking the challenge of becoming Mr Video Editor. The program I am using is capable of editing anything and everything, so obviously it is confusing and long to learn; but I am getting the hang of it; seeing my progress makes me feel good. The folks at Zochrot tell me that they expected me to really be inept and to suck. It is so encouraging to know that I don't suck and they don't find me inept. I have become the unofficial computer go-to guy (thankfully it is all super easy stuff like showing shortcuts in programs, installing and copying stuff and various zooming and pasting tricks...folks who know me know the truth); so that always makes it seem like I know what I'm doing. I am feeling much more confident these days and actually have a pile of stuff to do - which is great because I would HATE to be grasping, or asking, all the time for something to do.

As for Tel Aviv; this city hardly compares to Vancouver. The only thing I can think of that has Vancouver beaten is that the water is warmer here; although I do love the beaches of BC, too - especially the freshwater mountain lake beaches.

So what would make me make such an ethnocentric statement, causing concern to readers? Well, to start, as I've mentioned before, urine is the scent of choice for Tel Aviv. People don't pee on organic stuff either, they pee on the sidewalk or on walls; they seem to be drawn to peeing on cement. Men are gross, aren't we? And the cats, the cats, the cats. I like cats, but every cat here is still raging with their reproductive hormones and the smell proves it. I bought bleach today and had at 'er with the anteroom to apartment 11. Ah, the neutral smell of bleach. Out of all the neutral smells I know, bleach is my favourite - so germ free.

Back to gross. There's the smell of rotting garbage everywhere. And wafts of strong human poo coming randomly and powerfully without warning. This city reeks. And it's dirty. Filth-muck. Although, I've been told Cairo is worse. But this is one reason why I love my bike so much. I can get around so quickly and I am elevated off the gross streets and my flip flops don't melt from the hot concrete. My feet aren't burning anymore.

But I do like it here. Somehow I do; I have a spring in my step and I am full of laughter, except when I'm crying. I like all the lights at night; I often like looking at all the people packing-out the streets doing their Euro-stylin'-it-up, nouveau-Israeli, hip-and-happenin' routine that most people in Tel Aviv are STRIVING toward. I also dislike it, however, because this incessant need to be a scenester comes at the expense of Middle East peace in that people want their fancy night clubs and their expensive dinners; they don't want to face up to the pain, malnutrition, lack of water, overt military and policital oppression and the active continuation of those things by Israel unto Palestinians. Either they believe the zionist propaganda or they just don't care that Israel is really, actually crushing people and depriving them of basic human rights and freedoms.

I do have a laugh at the same things I did in Vancouver: people want to be seen and they do their hair just so...the young scenesters dress with a particular fashion that is like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston when they were "happy" and paid hundreds of thousand of dollars to look like bums. The in-crowd these days dress like really stylish wanna-be apathetics. You know they spend hours perfecting that throw-off image. I dress like a bum but I can truthfully say that I kind of am a bum; and I don't spend money trying to look like a bum; I look like a bum because I don't spend money trying....

I struggle with the shirts I see people wearing; statements like "alive and kicking," adding to the mood of a victim mentality. Or the ever-present orange streamers tied to purses and hanging from bikes, scooters, cars; even the blue ones for that matter. I struggle with the ongoing Israel-is-the-true-victim mentality that seems to permeate this city in some noetic, yet ineffible manner; well noetic and ineffible for my untrained discernment, at least.

The book, Blood Brothers, which I am reading right now, is really moving for me (being drawn to personal stories and journeys of faith) and I have found it really hard not to sin in my anger. I find hot tears in my eyes and on my cheeks and dread that someone would ask what in the world I am reading. It is by Elias Chacour (ghost-written by David Hazard) and is Elias' autobiography starting when he was eight and his family and the whole of Bir'im were expelled from their village in 1947, as Israel was gearing up to declare statehood. Chris and Tim Seidel (Bethlehem MCCers) loaned it to me after we visited the destroyed village and I am so grateful to read it. You can view photos and a reflection write-up about the village-tour Zochrot did on our website (www.zochrot.org) - a couple of video clips I'm working on will be posted in the next week, or so, Insh'Allah (God willing in Arabic). This man's life story grips me and pulls me and challenges my Sunday school idealism of Israel being established as a modern miracle. I simply cannot believe that anymore. (This book is the antithesis of the zionism that comes from Brock and Bodie Thoene.) I strongly encourage you to read it; it reads like a novel; the info is:

Blood Brothers, Elias Chacour, with David Hazard, Chosen Books, New York, 1984, ISBN# 0-8007-9096-0.

Back to Tel Aviv: I have found that I have to make a conscious effort to smile at the hardened unsmiling faces that pass by me on the sidewalks and streets. I have to make a conscious effort to not tell the line-budders to bugger off when they physically push past me.

I am finding wonderful solace in being unable to hear what people are saying. In fact, as much as I am yearing to learn Hebrew, I am dreading being able to understand what people are saying. I mean, by that, being able to overhear what people are talking about with each other. So much of my peace and quiet in this bustling city will disappear once I can overhear people's conversations. Then I'm sure the battle against negativity will become greater; it will have more weapons against me. For example, the other day I was at Mike's Place, having a cheap dinner. It is a restaurant overlooking the beach, with all the service and menus in english and most of the clientele being english speakers, with inexpensive and decent food. Well, there was this table of really loud Americans (not that there's anything wrong with being American....) and they were having the stupidest conversations about wearing orange or not wearing orange; and then they started talking about how much they like lesbians because lesbians are the coolest ever. And this mindless drivel just got more intense with each beer they drank - and I found that they kept breaking into my peace. These loudmouths were disturbing my sunset and giving me a headache with their mindless banter. I found myself getting negative and sour and resenting them for being there. I started to remember how much I would get driven nuts overhearing people's dumbass conversations in Vancouver. Then I started to get paranoid that I am going to hate listening to Israelis talk and am going to get all cynical and bitter because they will drive me nuts with their trivial verbal diarrhea. This is the battle against negativity. This is perhaps the biggest war I wage.

Don't get me wrong. I am deeply happy and filled with joy. I laugh a lot and even when I lost my sunglasses, which losing anything annoys me, I shrugged it off and said "easy come, easy go." I do smile at the unsmiling faces. I do say toda raba (thanks very much), instead of just saying toda (thanks). I do look at people in the eye as much as possible and see their humanity. I do attempt to quell the temptation to judge all Hebrew speakers as coldblooded Occupiers.

I just don't understand so much, that's all. I don't understand how people can be tender to their family, friends, or even stray cats, then venomously say that Palestinians are terrorists and that we should have no mercy on them. And that Palestinians need to mourn the evacuation from Gaza, rather than celebrate it. I have talked with people that are very friendly and kind until I slip up and mention Palestine or Palestinians and they get a glint in their eye. They turn on me and chastise me because I'm not Jewish and can't speak Hebrew, and if I am going to be concerned about Palestinians and desire a free democratic society, then I am antisemitic and don't know what I am talking about and certainly don't belong here. This nationalism is frustrating. I find myself lying to people when they ask me what I am doing here or how long I am going to be here.

I do struggle with lying because I don't think that things will get any better if there can't be recognition of the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophes of 1948, 1967 and their continuing catastrophe of being crushed under Israel's iron fist). Unless the Nakba can be mentioned, there won't be healing. And that is Zochrot's whole deal, to bring the Nakba to the attention of the Hebrew speaking Israeli public. So why do myself and other Zochrot activists shy away from telling people what we do for work? Why are we afraid of talking about the Nakba when we're not within the safety of Zochrot functions or events?

A popular argument used against Zochrot is that we are hypocritical because we only highlight Palestinian suffering, we don't highlight the suffering of Israelis. Even yesterday, during a presentation being given to a group of mostly American Jewish teenagers, one of them shakingly and through gritted teeth asked how we justify talking about massacre of 245 Palestinians in Deir Yassin (1948) and not mention what happened in Hebron (Palestinian uprising against the illegal Jewish settlement there in 1997). I thought the Zochrot spokeswoman (Jewish Israeli) did well in her response to him - she repeated his own argument for clarity, then dispelled it by saying, "It's not equal, there isn't a balance. To ask us to act as though everything is balanced is wrong. It is continuing the unfairness."

It reminds me of an anology of my own. One of my brothers, who shall remain nameless, used to pin me down when I was younger. He would spit in my face and essentially torture his weaker, younger brother. When I would panic and become irate and start to scream and freak out, he would tell me that he wan't going to let me up until I calmed down. We were kids and there's NO hard feelings; but it's an interesting parallel. I see Israel as the one who is pinning (or choking) and Palestine is reacting and Israel says, "I won't let you up because you are acting this way." Yes, but, Israel pinned Palestine in the first place. They're the pinners, not the victims.

Let me say, however, that I believe it IS important to recognise Israeli and Jewish suffering. I think that someone needs to extend grace and forgiveness. I am having that affirmed through reading this book, Blood Brothers. But I don't think that Israel is the victim and I don't think that the Western media portrays what is happening here accurately. AndyBoy remarked to me that all he sees in Danish media are stories about the "poor Israelis." What about the Palestinian people who have been oppressed for sixty years?

In spite of my reactions to all these whirring issues and emotions and sufferings, I wonder if I partake in the Oppression, myself, by immersing myself in Israeli society and culture. It bothers me that I love having my own space and being able to venture out at any time to get some milk or cheese or whatever. The grocery store is 24/7; which is "nice." I have my own little routines and enjoy my liebenstraum. I am constantly wondering why I get some and not others. I wonder why I more than happy to accept the conveniences of a first-world city, yet revile the politics of oppression. Where are my clothes made? What kid put my flip flops together? Stupid musings, you might think.

Let me affirm, however, that I am spending so much personal and alone time with God that it is wonderful. So much of the smoke-screens and busyness, for me, of living in Vancouver has melted away here and I can be alone with God often.

I do go out. I do socialise; I am energised by my relationship with people I work with. But I also get to spend a lot of time alone. I either read or write or listen to music or cook or clean. I like to sit overlooking the Sea watching the sun drop into the water, spilling it's light so beautifully through all the poluted particulates.
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I also wanted to take the opportunity to clarify some statements I made upon my immediate arrival here. I had said that by the flights of stairs and my best reasoning, that my apartment was on the sixth floor. Well, I was wrong. There are apartments on every half-floor, here, so my apartment is on floor three-and-a-half. I felt like I should clear that up.

Here is another clarification. It presents a perfect example of cross-cultural, cross-lingual miscommunication. I had told you earlier that when I was first here I was chatting with Eitan R. and I mentioned to him that I am looking forward to rain. "I read on the Internet that it rains for about four or five months a year, here," I said. "Oh, no," Eitan responded, "Only for maybe one month." A month? That's it? I told him that I was going to be very sad because of how much it rains in Vancouver and how much I have come to love the rain. He explained to me that the clouds just go overhead and they don't rain until they feel the pressure from the higher elevation, like in Jerusalem, he said, where rains more there.

Since then, I have mourned the lack of rain and been extra sensitive to this pissy-pants smell of the city. I have even wondered if this city EVER smells clean. Anyway, two days ago, Eitan and I were hanging out at the beach and we were talking about the increasingly bigger waves that pound the beaches (the water is never calm or mellow - mediocre surfing and terrific body-surfing abound). He said that in November they get to be these huge four-metre high waves barrelling over the breakers. I asked him why and he said it has something to do with the changing of the seasons. "Ah, yes," I said. "So, when does it rain here?" He responded that it starts raining in November and continues until February or March before the dry season starts again. I looked at him like he was crazy and said, "What about the one month of rain you told me about?" "Yes," he said, "One month of rain in total, spread out over five months." "Eitan," I exclaimed, laughing hard, "Who calculates total rainfall like that?" He was laughing, too, and said, "I thought you meant that it rained for five months straight without stopping." We both had a good chuckle. I made an immediate mental note to correct that earlier citation of only one month of rain. I am so happy, too, that for five months, this city will be clean! I can only hope....

New devlepment for Wallace. I believe he lives in apartment 3. Their door was wide open and he was hanging out in front of the doorway when I was walking up the stairs tonight. I stopped, gave him a good cuddle and he followed me up to my place. The reason why I think he lives in #3 is because he didn't feel the need to go in there. He was content hanging out right out front; but he always tries to get into my place. I nearly turned around and asked if he was theirs but didn't. I guess I really want him to be theirs and didn't want to be disappointed.
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Perhaps I am no better than anyone else living in Tel Aviv. In the face of suffering and human oppression, I go to the beach, eat humous, pet kitties and keep myself busy. I need to remember that. Yeah, but I do spend ten hours a day, at least, working actively against the blanket of oppression, either at the office or educating myself at home. I need to remember that, too.

Sorry for the long answer, folks, but that is how I am doing.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie?

21-08-05

Do cats have feelings? Can they feel lonliness? Do they yearn for security and a cuddle from a human relationship? ...'Cause there's this cat who lives in my building....

...He looks just like a cat I used to know, years ago. Looks like little Wallace before a reckless car took him. This cat isn't like the others. He spends most of his time in my stairwell. I have never seen him venture past the front patio of the building; never seen him on the other side of the ten-foot high wall of evergreen-hedging blocking the front patio from the sidewalk and street. And he doesn't look as lean and scruffy as the other cats; or as street-tough and wild. He looks like he gets good quality food and maybe even has his shots. He looks healthy is what I'm saying.
The first week I lived here, he would scuttle away from me whenever I came to the landing he was sleeping on. When I came in late at night, though, and pushed the button that turns on the stairwell lights for sixty seconds, I felt badly about waking him up when I came to his landing. He would open one eye and squink from the bright lighting; then he would see it was me and because he didn't know me, he have to get up and lean into the wall and scoot past me as I turned 180 degrees on the four-foot square landing to climb the next flight of stairs. I tried to give him as much space as possible.

I felt badly for him and began to talk in kitty tones everytime I walked past him on the landings. After only two days of that, Wallace (for that's who he looks and acts like), attempted to rub into my legs in that affectionate cat-loving manner when I was trying to get into my front door. I didn't let him; but dodged him. The worst reason was because I didn't want strange-cat dander on me; not that he has any, and for that matter, not that he's strange; but you never know if you don't inspect the little fella. And, I am scared to have us become attached to each other emotionally. Is that why I haven't touched him yet? What if he is someone's cat? I just can't start feeding him and hanging out with him. That is a house-pet faux pas; everyone knows that. I also don't want him to sit at my apartment door and meow or be there every time I go to leave my place. It would make me so sad to know he's becoming dependent on my inadequate provision for his needs.

But now, whenever I am coming to the landing he is on, he just looks up at me and we smile at each other. I have noticed that he sleeps on different welcome mats all the time. He was even sleeping on the one outside of my apartment's door once. I was carrying some groceries and he ran into the anteroom, which connects all three suites of number 11. The neighbour at number ten was at his front door and removed the cat for me. He was nice about it; wasn't rough with him. I thought the cat was his by the tender way he handled him and the presence of both of them at the same time. But then I remembered seeing Wallace sleeping on different landings. He is on one when I come home and on another when I am leaving. I guess he's just got a piece of my neighbour's heart, too. And yesterday I saw some kitty bile and some chewed grass in the middle of a landing. Whoever's that was has a bellyache. What if it is Wallace who has the bellyache? There are many cats around but I only see Wallace on the landings. The rest stay outside, or hang out in the front entry near the front door, where the mailboxes are.

Tonight, when I came home from the beach and an ensuing bike ride through the streets, Wallace met me on the second landing. I think I touched him; stroked his back. He followed me all the way to my door and as soon as I opened it, he ran into the anteroom. I crouched down, extended my arm and rubbed my fingers together at him to get him to come out of the room. He came to me right away. I stroked him once more, then said good boy and slipped in through my door without him.

The cat in the suite beside mine, whom I never see, and whom I don't think goes out, is always crying at its door. I have seen more than my neighbour's hand, when he reached around his door to pluck his keys out of the lock, once; I only know my landlady, Orit (Or-eet). So, tonight, after I had eaten dinner and poured a big glass of juice, I decided to head up to the roof and look at the city lights for a bit. Wallace was sitting at my door when I opened it. Was he there the whole hour I spent making dinner and moseying around? Maybe he is attracted to the cat who lives inside the suite next to mine. Maybe that's why the anteroom smells so badly. Maybe the cat in the suite next to mine is in heat (hence the meowing) and maybe all sorts of cats (or maybe just Wallace) are spraying at the base of the door to number 11. And maybe, when that door is opened, it drags in the spray into the anteroom and the darkness and lack of fresh air make it stagnant. Or maybe not.

I have no idea if he would spray if I let him into my apartment. My anteroom, smells like cat spray so badly I'm getting some lysol tommorrow. I have thought about bleaching it but I wouldn't even want the mop cloth afterwards and I only have one. I guess I could buy more if the Lysol or some kind of spray-on disinfectant doesn't kill the rank smell. But would Wallace shoot some mist if I let him into my anteroom or even my sanctuary of a home? Would he start sleeping at my door? Would I have to get him shots and buy kitty litter and take him in to live with me? Sleep in my bed? Then would he be an inside cat or would I let him out when I went out and let him in when I came home? What would I do with him when I am ready to move from here? Does this cat even give friendship a thought or he is just being polite to me? Or is he totally unaware that he has any needs? Does he even have needs; or do I just have issues and an imagination?

In Israel / Palestine, these days, with all the oppression of people and how that lends itself psychologically and spiritually to the atmosphere; and with all the tension going on regarding the withdrawal from Gaza and the continued oppression in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the violence and the confusion, is caring about the welfare of a cat insulting to the humans who are suffering? Last night, as I was leaving my street to go for a bike ride around Tel Aviv, I rode past a very recently dead cat. I couldn't believe how gory the sight was. This orange cat had not merely had the life knocked out of it by a vehicle. It was completely smashed and gaping, like a tire had squealed on it, flaying and mutilating its body. My stomach lurched and I swerved past it on my bike; but immediately the thought came to me - what of the humans that are torn apart and are squashed not fifty miles from here? I wouldn't allow myself to feel pain and loss over a dead cat if I can handle living my day-to-day first-world life in Tel Aviv, with madness and human degridation all around me, even spewing into this city.

On Friday, the Muslim holy day, someone or some group threw a severed pig's head into the front door of the Tel Aviv mosque. I have seen the mosque many times on the edge of Jaffa; its structure preceeds 1948 and its brick tower is beautiful, with its beautiful green light a shining beacon at night. The News could only surmise it was a protest of the Gaza settlements. I surmised it was a zionist attempt to incite Israeli-Palestinian Muslims, or even all Palestinians, to commit violence, thus giving anti-disengagment protestors ammunition to try to show why the government should change its mind about letting Palestinians have a little breathing room in the Gaza Strip.

In the light of all those who suffer around me, is the desire to care for the cat out of a sense of helplessness in terms of being able to help those who are suffering? Or is it narcissistic? Is it just some subliminally egocentric act stemming from personal lonliness? Or is care for a cat blessing peace and stepping towards compassion? Can caring for a cat affect other areas of the cat carer's life for the better? Instead of mocking suffering and compassion, does caring for a cat participate in both on an incarnational level?

Or is it just better to leave sleeping cats lie?

Articles Re. Gaza and Israeli / Palestinian Relations

Hello Everyone:

Things are pretty intense here in Israel / Palestine these days. Tense anxiety is even felt in the bustling streets of Tel Aviv. The following are two op-eds were forwarded to me by my fellow MCCers Tim and Chris Siedel, living in Bethlehem.
I encourage you to take the time to read the following; I think these pieces really give a holistic perspective of the pullout of Gaza and the ongoing occupation of Palestine, from varied perspectives.

DB
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This past week we had the pleasure of meeting a Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust. She was part of an AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) delegation visiting the region. Telling us of a speaking event that she was asked to participate in several years ago at the behest of Elie Wiesel, she described it as "one of the only good things he [Wiesel] has done." Reading this op-ed piece in which the departing settlers who are ending their illegal, colonizing presence in the occupied Gaza Strip are referred to as "the dispossessed," minimizing the past and current ongoing realities of dispossession that Palestinians experience, I can understand this woman's commentary a little better. Peace, Tim
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The New York Times August 21, 2005 The Dispossessed By ELIE WIESEL

IN 1991, when Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles fell in a deafening din on Tel Aviv, some Palestinians danced in the streets and on the roofs of their houses. I saw them. I was in Jerusalem, and I could see what was happening in the Arab quarter of the Old City. It happened again later, each time a suicide terrorist set off a bomb on a bus or in a restaurant. I evoke these scenes with sadness, and for a reason: we have just seen them repeated in Gaza.

The images of the evacuation itself are heart-rending. Some of them are unbearable. Angry men, crying women. Children, led away on foot or in the arms of soldiers who are sobbing themselves.

Let's not forget: these men and women lived in Gaza for 38 years. Successive governments, from the left and the right, encouraged them to settle there. In the eyes of their families, they were pioneers, whose idealism was to be celebrated.

And here they are, obliged to uproot themselves, to take their holy and precious belongings, their memories and their prayers, their dreams and their dead, to go off in search of a bed to sleep in, a table to eat on, a new home, a future among strangers.

From far away, we watch them on television screens and in the pages of newspapers. Some have behaved in an offensive and undignified manner. They insulted and wounded soldiers; they spat on officers - including some who are decorated heroes, all of them ready to give their lives for their country. But the majority have responded in a dignified way: with tears. As though united in the same despair, soldiers and evacuees cried together, even to such an extent that certain commentators have reproached them, saying: our warriors of yesterday and tomorrow shouldn't give way to easy emotion.

On a strictly military level, the operation is a success. For that, and for his brave decision to pursue future peace even at present political cost, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon deserves praise. But starting now, Israelis and Palestinians must face the question: What next?

And here I am obliged to take a step back. In the tradition I claim, the Jew is ordered by King Solomon "not to rejoice when the enemy falls." I don't know whether the Koran suggests the same.

I know only that in my opinion, what is missing from the chapter now closing is a collective gesture that ought to be made, but that hasn't been made, by the Palestinians.

Let's imagine it, if you will. Let's imagine that, faced with the tears and suffering of the evacuees, the Palestinians had chosen to silence their joy and their pride, rather than to organize military parades with masked fighters, machine guns in hand, shooting in the air as though celebrating a great battlefield victory. Yes, imagine that President Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues, in advising their followers, extolled moderation, restraint, respect and a little understanding for the Jews who felt themselves struck by an unhappy fate. They would have won general admiration.

I will perhaps be told that when the Palestinians cried at the loss of their homes, few Israelis were moved. That's possible. But how many Israelis rejoiced?

And now, where are we? A lull is imperative. The tears must be allowed to dry and the wounds to heal. Haste, in this delicate moment, is dangerous. Any pressure from outside risks being counterproductive.

Why these words of warning? Because last May, at an official dinner offered by King Abdullah II of Jordan, I spoke with the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei. When I asked him what he thought of Mr. Sharon's courageous decision regarding Gaza, it was with a wave of the hand that he objected, adding with disdain: "All that is worth nothing, means nothing. If Sharon doesn't begin right away to negotiate definitive borders, a great catastrophe will be the result." He repeated those words: "right away" and "a great catastrophe."

The optimist in me wants very much to believe that those were just words. Gaza, after all, is but one chapter in a book that must ultimately be about peace.


Elie Wiesel, a professor of humanities at Boston University, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. This article was translated from the French by The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21wiesel.html

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The following is one reader's response posted on the NYT website:

Wiesel's Weaseling

Elie Wiesel, once a man with a sound moral compass, offers some disheartening and cynical agitprop in this piece.

Wiesel's characterization of the settlers as rootless, homeless, and looking for a place to rest their heads is ludicrous spin--a wretched abuse of poetical license. Each family received hundreds of thousands of dollars cash, and they all had months to dismantle their homes and rebuild exact replicas elsewhere, if they wanted. That some chose not to is their problem. And even the ones who thought God would not allow their removal, and did nothing to prepare, still have plenty of cash!

1."...when the Palestinians cried at the loss of their homes, few Israelis were moved. That's possible. But how many Israelis rejoiced?"

The Palestinians didn't "lose their homes"--their homes were bulldozed by the Israeli army. They weren't given hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation, nor given months to remove their belongings and fixtures (from the roof tiles to the floorboards). To compare the ad hoc bulldozing of people's homes to this well-organized and highly compensated act of eminent domain is odious. Wiesel of all people should be sensitive to this sort of hyperbole, as it is similar to arguments relying on "Holocaust equivalence."

2. He says that "what is missing from the chapter now closing is a collective gesture that ought to be made, but that hasn't been made, by the Palestinians."

The close of this chapter is just beginning. The pullout is not complete. The Gaza airport is still in Israeli hands. Why should the Palestinians "silence their joy" at the end of this 35 year-long provocation? Did Wiesel "silence his joy" upon his release from Nazi brutality?

The Palestinians can be excused their outbursts of joy. (When did they last make a gain of this magnitude?) Wiesel insists on magnanimity by the Palestinians as they see the "tears and suffering" of the 'evacuees' (a nice term for self-righteous squatters who knew a good deal when they saw one). The Israeli Army is still there. The West Bank settlements and the Wall are still there. This gesture by Sharon is, hopefully, the first of glimmer of a return to sanity and humanity by the government. But hardly the sort of "victory" that demands magnanimity.



And from another reader's response:

"There are three "Arab" quarters in the Old city -- Muslim, Christian and Armenian. There is one Jewish quarter."

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The New York Times August 21, 2005 Live From Gaza: A New View of Israel By DAOUD KUTTAB Ramallah, West Bank

SOMETHING strange happened last week: Israeli settlers and Jewish extremists appeared human on Arab TV. This is not to say that Arabs have suddenly become soft on their historical enemies. But hours and hours of watching - on all stations, including Al Jazeera - close-ups of mothers and babies, of young women and older men, visibly in anguish as they were forced out of their homes, had an emotional effect.

Of course, Palestinians didn't miss the context. Talk in our living rooms and over Turkish coffee at the office has been mixed: "Do you think they were acting?"; "Anyway, they were illegally on our land"; "Imagine what Palestinian refugees felt as they were being forcibly evicted years ago"; "What about the 120 homes in Rafah that were razed a few months ago?"; "Where was the world press as Palestinians were killed, often by these same settlers?"

Surprisingly, the coverage on Arab news networks has reflected these contradictions. One Arab reporter on the scene asked his anchor back in Dubai, "Did you see the soldiers crying?" Another network countered such images with an interview with the parents of Muhammad al-Dura, the 12-year-old boy who was photographed dying in his father's arms in 2000 and whose image has become a symbol of the intifada. But for the most part, the language on the broadcasts has been accurate and straightforward.

Even the largest Palestinian newspaper, Al Quds, had to deal with the emotional aspect of the evacuations. It carried an editorial on Thursday about the effects of the images of settlers crying and Israeli soldiers embracing them. It concluded that such scenes could have been avoided had Israel not grabbed Palestinian lands in the first place. Of course, Al Quds was correct in pointing out the obvious context - but this didn't lessen the way the pictures affected average Palestinians.

The Gaza evacuations also produced many interesting comparisons. Many Palestinians compared the kid-glove treatment given to the protesting settlers (who will be handsomely compensated) with the violent response to even peaceful Palestinian protests. And the much-shown clip of an Israeli father lifting his young daughter into the faces of emotionless soldiers reminded many of Palestinian mothers lifting their young sons in the air and publicly calling on them to avenge the deaths of a brother or a father.

The comparative images of religion were also evident. Fanatic Islam was mirrored by fanatic Judaism. One CNN reporter even had a slip of a tongue, mistakenly saying that settlers holed up in a synagogue were in a "mosque."

Then there was the common dynamic of minority factions monopolizing political discourse. Just as with the exaggerated political powers that Palestinian militants enjoy, it was clear that a few fanatic Jews were hijacking the anti-evacuation cause - note that the last protesters to be removed have been nonresidents dragged from synagogues in which they probably had never worshiped.

Whether Palestinians and Arabs will admit it or not, the powerful images of the last few days can't be ignored. Irrespective of the facts that Jewish settlements are illegal and that the Palestinian refugee problem was created by Israeli military force, the human cost on both sides of the conflict is huge. While not agreeing with either the settlers or the actions of Palestinian militants, the rest of us must start understanding and respecting them as humans. And it would help if the international news media began portraying ordinary Palestinians, too, with a touch of humanity.

Any sane person should by now realize that any long-term solution can only be achieved by level-headed leaders who can make mutual compromises and concessions. This means that continued Israeli unilateralism will do little to move the post-Gaza peace process forward. Only bilateral Palestinian-Israeli talks, with the help of the international community, can bring a lasting agreement.

The dramatic scenes from Gaza should lead us all to double our efforts to ensure that Palestinians can be free in an independent state, alongside a safe and secure Israel.


Daoud Kuttab is the director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21kuttab.html?th&emc=th