{ A three way correspondence about Israel and Palestine... Last update: 9/14/2001 } From: An American Jew, now a Buddhist - Subject: WTC 9/11/2001 Rhodes, I'm understanding of the human emotion behind our beating the war drums, but incredibly saddened that no public leaders are asking "why" did this happen, and instead blaming it on "evil". From simply a muslim point of view consider: 1) America's refusal to allow the Eastern European muslims to arm themselves to defend against ethnic cleansing. 2) The subsequent carpet bombing of the area. 3) The bombing of Baghdad - a civilian capital - where the Pentagon estimates 200,000 deaths, and the UN estimates that 500,000 children have died since as a result of "spent uranium shells" (cancer") and total destruction of the santitation infrastructure. 4) Our unequivocal, uncritical support (or silence) about Israel when gunships fly into cities and strafe and rocket police stations, office buildings; when the entire Palestinian citizenry is reduced to impoverished refugees in a country which is at least partially theirs; where 12 year olds are being shot to death for throwing stones. It would take a superhuman person not to be enraged; not to plan malevolent retribution. This awful bombing demonstrates to me that no one anywhere is safe. That the very engines of our wealth can be turned against us, and only honest steps taken to investigate "why people hate us so much" might be of use. It is an ideal time. Touched by grief and real suffering, perhaps Americans are at last ready to comprehend the levels of suffering created in their names in: Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Panama, Haiti, Iraq, Bosnia, and now apparently Afghanistan. The people planning the retribution are the same people who've brought us all the previous side-shows. While their responsemay serve to consolidate the presidency for George II, there is no military response that can stop small cells of five to ten people operating independently. Rudimentary logistics and logic show that. The only option truly left is to begin treating people as human, and attending to the legitimacy of their needs ---- and this includes the poor bastards at airport security making minimum wage and no benefits. The core common denominator is money. The airlines don't want to pay for real security. Our government doesn't want to give up a nickel so that Africans and Latin-Americans could rise out of poverty; the Israeli's won't give up a penny so that the Palestinians could have running water. The upshot? A new generation of people with nothing to lose; ready to die to advance a cause. There's no way we can beat such people without so fundamentally changing ourselves as to make living here unfit for people. Only an honest redress of grievances and measures of social justice will allow people to get on with their own constructive nation building and closer-to-home wealth building and society building processes. I'm afraid we're going to keep on re-creating the past. Next time, one of those people crossing the border, might just have a bottle of Sarin or Anthrax in his pocket. I'm afraid our leaders are not thinking empathetically and clearly. (It was their policy institutes after all, that disparaged suicide attacks in the United States in the belief that as soon as people left the Middle East and got here, they would want to live! How chauvinistic is that?) Ah well, keep breathing. * * * * To: the above writer From: Rhodes Subject: Israel and Palestine Thu 11:37 AM I take exception to some of your comments about the Palestinians, but I am not comfortable with Israel's actions either, nor with ours. I recognize that Israel was created badly in a bad situation which the British were anxious to escape. I also recognize that the refugee camps have been artificially prolonged as a media weapon against Israel. As for stone throwing children being shot, you should know that they are purposely put in front while, behind them, older youth with firearms shoot from behind cover at the Israelis. I think the Israelis are showing substantial restraint in the face of cynical media tactics by Palestinians. The air strikes against Palestinians are said to be pre-emptive. Sharon would say he is striking active terrorists to prevent larger bloodshed. It has a near-term logic, but does not make sense in the larger view: I imagine every attack breeds another 100 would-be martyrs, each of whom represents another explosion killing another 100 Israelis. The math does not work. I believe in a two state solution. I believe that Israel has a right to exist, as does Palestine. Both states must be viable territories with their own water and with their own access to the Mediterranean. I believe that a complete ethnic/national separation would have to be effected to let the hatred and vengeance cycles to die down. Israel would have to find a way to do without its Palestinian employees for many years. As for the mechanics of separation, I don't know how one would decide whether this or that person is an Israeli or a Palestinian. I suppose you could let each of them decide for themselves, but I suspect there may be some catch there. A Cyprus style border would be needed, I imagine it running east/west to be as short as possible, but I have not studied the map and I'm sure there are many other factors to consider. Reports from Cyprus are that it works - the Greek and Turkish Cypriots still hate each other, but they don't waste much time over it, the incidence of violence is very low, and each side lives its own life. I believe there is no use talking to Arafat. He has either zero integrity or no backing. The solution will have to be a unilateral one unless Israel can get help from other nations, or the Palestinians come up with a real leader they are willing to stand behind. I think Israel should propose a real, practical, and honorable, two state solution to the U.N. and solicit approval there and assistance in implementation, and Americans should support the effort. * * * * From: An American ex-pat living in Israel since 1989 - Subject: Did you know... Tue 2:53 PM Yesterday, 10-Sept.'01, There were three terrorist attacks within a few hours here in Israel. They were planned and carried out by Arab extremists groups (Fatah and another). They influence young men and they brainwash them into becoming a martyr, they are promised a place in heaven, and they are convinced that they have nothing to lose so they do an extremely brave (or so they believe), a last act of their will by committing suicide and taking others with him - as many as he can. He does not think of the rights to live, of his own right to live. He is brainwashed into completely altering his perspective of life into something so far from my reality I cannot even fathom. That was yesterday. Three separate places, three separate explosions. Lives of hundreds forever changed. Terrorised the lives of millions. Today is the next day. Today, people are burying the dead, visiting the injured, cleaning up the broken pieces of the streets, the broken windows near by and the broken pieces of their lives to move on. Today is 11-Sept.'01. The day before my baby brother's birthday. I had on my mind to create a beautiful birthday card...but that was a few hours ago. I was interrupted. Now, I am busy with the scenes on the TV. Like a great movie, there are unbelieveable scenes of explosions and destruction. But it is real life. It is not a movie. Unfathomable pieces of thousands of American lives; of millions who are now terrorized. There was one joyful scene on the TV: in a Palestinian Arab village about an hour away from my home. They are celebrating in the streets, a festival atmosphere. They are celbrating the destruction of one of their 'foes'... ...Ah. But don't you feel sorry for the poor Palestinians? When they are on the TV and how they have wonderful PR that Israeli occupies 'their' lands. That they value life like all of us (yeh sure - put that child in front of you as a shield as you walk down the street.) I hope this helps you to question. Trying to stay positive and strong. * * * Thu 12:01 PM Subject: RE: "Did you know..." Rhodes, I know that Palestinians and Jews have lived in that land together since time immemmorial. I know that no people has righteousness, good-will and integrity entirely on their side. I know that Israel was "given" to the Israelis by people who did not have a right to give it. I know that the Haganah, the Israeli commandos, cleared the land by bloodshed and murder. Yitzak Shamir writes in his autobiography of leading the raid on Shatilah where over 250 Arab men, women, and children, were put to death. I know that the Israelis are a "European" culture in the midst of Semitic lands, explaining the Palestinians to Europeans, and by so doing, having taken their voices. I know that Arafat and his people are also murdering thugs, and that fanatics have taken over the Palestinian liberation struggle, but that does not invalidate the struggle. I know many Israelis and American Jews who cannot even conceive that the Palestinians have a point of view and legitimate argument. I know there's gonna be trouble. * * * Thu 3:52 PM Subject: RE: "Did you know... " Rhodes, I agree with his last line. I also know that there will be trouble ahead. I honestly believe (after living here for 12 years) that the differences between the Israeli and the Arab are vast. The differences are so vast that it is and will be extremely hard to ever come to a solution. We will not succeed. Our children may be able - out of 'no choice'. It is to this end that I say now that 'education' is the only answer. The Palestinian children msut learn what it is to be one of the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots.' They can build hope instead of dancing in the streets celebrating the woes of another. Learn that the value of life is really a gift and not to be wasted by blowing oneself up so they can kill others. The Israeli must have enough patience to give them a hand and live in peace as in the USA (at least that was). Only with education can this happen. The Arabic language creates a reality of such that they do not take responsibility on the self. For example: The bus has gone by, I did not get to the bus stop in time to board it. In English: Ah! I have missed the bus. In Hebrew: Ah! I missed the bus. In Arabic: Ah! The bus has left me behind. (That damned bus. How dare it! The poor guy had nothing to do with manifesting, creating, building, etc. He has a victim mentality and therefore, will be a victim - oh the games people play, and they don't even know it!) It is only through education that all peoples can learn to be responsible for their realities. It is imperitive that each one of us figure out that there is only one earth and only one people. We are one. As the USA is in pay-back mode and kills a few more hundred (I hope not), it effects the energy of us all. As hatred builds, tensions soar, Arabs living quietly in the USA will now become targets. Creating more fear, distrust and hatred. Building a cycle of fear rather than building a solution, a ladder of accomplishments toward successfully understanding and acceptance of another. Somehow, if the USA can target only a single few and then come in with masses of monies and education to re-train the peoples and re-educate the hating/fearful ones who have built a reality of hatred and fear, give and break the cycle of hatred of those who have manifested it so into actions...I don't see any other way. The building of hatred and one kills a few here, they retaliate and kill a few there; is the game that Israeli has been playing for decades. No one really knows what the score is. Everyone is right. And, everyone will pay. USA was always able to mediate. If the mediators now move to one of the sides and join in the cycle of hatred and killing...we will never break the cycle. Yes. The terrorism is horrendous. Yes. I can not even fathom the amount of lives (and the world psyche) that are now changed forever. I can only hope that the USA Forces are enlightened enough to see more than the immediate anger and 'we'll get them!' It is very complicated, and yet it is very simple. The cycle must be broken. It can not be broken by more fear and hatred. * * * Subject: RE: "Did you know..." Thursday 9/13/01 Rhodes, There is nothing that this woman says with which I disagree, except perhaps the part about the language. There are no shortage of ways to prevaricate and make excuses in English and avoid responsibility. The simplest being the almost invisible assumption that we're "good" ...and what follows from that is almost inevitably a great deal of harm to others. I prefer to think of myself as a potentially very dangerous person who has to be on guard to make sure that my anger, hatreds, and delusions don't "leak" out and pollute interpersonal or interpolitical events. I suppose it's why I continue to sit za-zen every day. It seems to me that the best way that - "The Palestinian children must learn what it is to be one of the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots.' They can build hope instead of dancing in the streets celebrating the woes of another. Learn that the value of life is really a gift and not to be wasted by blowing oneself up so they can kill others." - is to have a nation that they can begin to build. The peace accord between Egypt and Israel is about 12 pages. It's simple and very clear. The accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians is over 300 pages -- down to the type of stamps that they can have. It's not really a peace accord, it's an attempt to give Arafat a "presidency" and have him "govern" his people. However what he's expected to do is unjust, and they're not going for it. They are going for Hamas. It seems to me that were the Palestinians to have access to land, water, foreign investments, that the Israelis could put their energy into guarding the borders. Everyone knows that the Israelis have nuclear weapons and plenty of ability to defend themselves.. If the Palestinians had a real state, and a land base, would not their energy go into building a Nation? And then if they made incursions into Israel, the Israeli's would have world opinion on their side when they retaliated, instead of the situation now, where they appear to (and are) be killing children. If you look at a Population map of the West Bank and Gaza, except for Qiryat Sefer, Ma'ale Adimmim, Beitar Illit, there are no Israeli population centers of 30,000-100,000 people, while at Tulkarm, Qalqilia, Nablus, Ramalla, and Hebron there are centers of 100,000 - 200,000 Palestinians, and then at Bethlehem, Jericho and literally hundreds of Palestinian towns ranging from 2500 - 100,000. It's clear that there is very little Israeli presence in that area (the Green Line pre-1967 borders.) No matter what horrors have been perpetuated by both sides in the past, the Palestinians will not go away, and are not being offered homelands by their Arab brothers. What's happened in New York is clear indication as to what a few malcontents can do. Who would want to live that way? We cannot continue to be Jews and do what's necessary to repress what is or will soon be a majority population. Even the great Jewish philosopher George Steiner noted, around the time that Israel was being formed, that "the true native land of the Jews is the imagination." It was his argument that if the Jews had a nation state they would be forced to do terrible things to defend it that would be in conflict with their religious and cultural traditions that made them a great people. I'm afraid this has come true. However, Israel exists, and they, of all people, should be able to recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. Offering them real land and a real future would do more, it seems to me, to separate average parents, bakers, school-teachers, cab-drivers, plumbers, businessmen, etc. from the radical, revolutionary front than anything else I can think of. Yes, it may be that 50 years from now Israel would have a powerful state on its borders, but that's already the case and they've survived. If they were to become righteous allies instead of oppressors, they might, in 50 years, have a powerful state that appreciated and traded with them. I can't see another way. * * * * *