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The Other Israel _ March 2002, Issue No. 101/102
Contents:
The Wounded Lion, an editorial overview
The September 11 factor
Sharon's season
Arafat's acrobatics
Hudna denied
An assassination too far
Downward spiral
Sitting ducks
Peace proposals & broken promises
Cyclone of war
The world awakens
Picking up the pieces
Late-Breaking News Items
Waking Up, by Beate Zilversmidt
Forum Discussion on War Crimes, January 9
Continued violence; protest demonstrations
And the Square Was Full
February 9 rally in Tel Aviv
...And Even Fuller
February 16 rally in Tel Aviv
Five Little Flames
November 27 demonstration in front of Defense Ministry
In Spite Of All, a Jubilant Mood
December 31 Peace Circle in Jerusalem
Marching Through Empty Jerusalem
March 2, 2002
Humanitarian Aid as a Political Act
December 10 relief convoy to Kufr Yasuf
Breaking Through to Mufkara, by Neve Gordon
Another relief convoy, January 12
A Thousand Coffins
The Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum
The Occupation Killed My Son
March 19, 2002
A Ray of Sunshine
December 28 demonstration
(sponsored by Coalition of Women for Peace)
Seventh Day & Fifth Mother
More demonstrations by (predominantly) women's groups
Courage to Refuse
January 26 ad by reserve combat soldiers & officers
Background to the ad and its repercussions
Yigal Shohat's speech
At February 9 Forum Discussion on War Crimes
Wrong War, by Uri Avnery
from Ma'ariv, March 12
Not Playing the Game, by Asaf Oron
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[THE OTHER ISRAEL is the newsletter of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, P.O.Box 2542, 58125 Holon,
Israel.
Phone/Fax: (03) 5565804; E-mail: otherisr@actcom.co.il
Editor: Adam Keller
Coeditor: Beate Zilversmidt
--------------
NO COPYRIGHT
Our articles may be reprinted, provided they include the address The Other Israel POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.
THE WOUNDED LION
At the end of a tense cabinet meeting in March 2002, precisely a year after Ariel Sharon
took power in the state of Israel, Foreign Minister Peres told the press: 'Had I known things would come to this,
I would not have joined the government.' He made this comment in a time of runaway escalation, dozens upon dozens
of daily casualties on both sides, and the Israeli army mounting against Palestinians the biggest military operation
it had undertaken since 1982 -- plus a tottering economy and steadily increasing unemployment, with the public
morale deteriorating just as steadily.
In fact, there had been no difficulty in predicting that if elected, Sharon would lead
Israel in such a direction. Among others, the Labor Party itself made precisely such predictions in its elections
propaganda of January 2001 -- though the party leaders seemed to forget them on the very day after
the elections, when they rushed to the winner's bandwagon.
Moreover, the future policy of the Sharon Government was set out clearly and comprehensively
as early as November 2000, in a policy paper published by Meir Dagan, a retired brigadier general and confidential
adviser to then opposition leader Sharon. Dagan did not keep it secret -- on the contrary, it was widely
circulated to the press, but did not get very much attention at the time.
Only a year later was the forgotten paper unearthed and published anew in Yediot Aharonot.
The analysis appended found considerable correspondence between the policy Dagan had outlined in advance and what
was actually implemented by Sharon ever since he came to power.
Just as the Dagan paper had recommended, Sharon's actual policy was aimed at progressively
eroding the structures created by the Oslo Agreements -- in particular, gaining "a complete freedom
of operational movement" for Israeli military forces in the "A" areas in which Oslo gave the Palestinians
a semi-sovereign status.
To succeed, the paper stipulated, this should be done without officially denouncing the
Oslo Agreements, while keeping the support of Israeli public opinion and of the Americans, and also without evoking
more than verbal protests from either the Europeans or the Arab states.
Given Sharon's earlier failure in Lebanon, where his 1982 invasion swiftly alienated the
entire world as well as large part of the Israeli society and ended with Sharon's own downfall and with the country
mired in decades-long guerrilla war, such a plan would have been dismissed as extremely implausible; that, indeed,
was the original response when Dagan published his paper. Yet for many months, Sharon as Prime Minister did prove
eminently successful in implementing exactly that plan -- to the mingled wonder and horror of his opponents.
On his very first day in power, Sharon enacted a "strangling closure" of Ramallah.
Faced with international and domestic protests, he announced the cancelling of the measure. Yet within a few weeks
the outrageous innovation had become a new routine, all Palestinian towns and villages were enmeshed in tightening
closures and sieges, and an ever-increasing number of military checkpoints and roadblocks made travelling on the
West Bank roads a prolonged, dangerous and humiliating adventure.
This was officially justified by the need to block the way of suicide bombers, in which
it was not particularly effective; only many months later did high military officers half-admit that the true purpose
was "to pressure the population so that they will pressure Arafat to stop the Intifada" (which did not
happen, either).
So it was with the other oppressive measures which by imperceptible steps became daily
routine: the bombing of Palestinian cities by helicopter gun ships and later by F-16 fighter planes, carrying heavier
bombs; the practice of assassinating Palestinians suspected of terrorism ("Targeted killings" or "Liquidations"
or "Extra-judicial executions"); the "incursions" into Palestinian territory, the steadily
increasing extent of military force and duration, until they became full-scale invasions and re-occupations of
areas evacuated under Oslo.
Sharon could not have gotten away with so much for so long, but for the pernicious legacy
left him by Ehud Barak. Sharon's predecessor had presented himself as leader of the peace camp and aroused enormous
hopes -- only to completely dash them, declare peace to be impossible and place the responsibility
squarely upon the Palestinians.
Page 2
That paved the way for Sharon's election victory. In an atmosphere where the option of
peace was thoroughly discredited, the peace movement was reduced to a handful, and the Israeli public got into
the mind set of using brute force against the Palestinians, it seemed no more than logical to vote Sharon, the
personification of such an approach.
The dispirited and discredited Labor Party leaders were quick to scramble for portfolios
in Sharon's cabinet, making it "a government of national unity." Binyamin Ben-Eliezer got the defence
portfolio, thus being responsible for the daily conduct of the offensive against the Palestinians. Nobel Peace
Laureate Shimon Peres took up the foreign ministry, i.e. he became Sharon's international propagandist, getting
in exchange the PM's permission to conduct a variety of diplomatic initiatives -- none of which had
any chance to bear fruit.
Never during his year in power did Sharon express an outright rejection of a peace plan.
And there were many: the creative schemes thought up by Sharon's own Foreign Minister, the Mitchell Commission
report which became the new shibboleth of Middle Eastern diplomacy, the Tenet Plan which aimed at implementing
Mitchell, the later plans and ideas whose purpose was to implement Tenet, the proposals of the ever-present European
envoys, later the far-reaching plan of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
To all, Sharon developed a standard response: acceptance in principle while attaching
impossible conditions in practice, his favorite ploy being to demand "seven days of total quiet" before
negotiations could begin, at the same time conducting an aggressive military policy ensuring that these seven days
would never start.
In this, Sharon had the full cooperation of Army Chief of Staff Mofaz and his deputy Moshe
Ya'alon; the generals had been eagerly implementing an ever more aggressive policy, and were actively promoting
that policy in frequent direct addresses to the media and political system, which more than once seemed to strain
the limits placed upon the role of the military in a democratic state.
At the very hour when Peres and Arafat were meeting in the Gaza Strip, August 26, to try
and work out a cease-fire, Israeli military units killed six Palestinians during an incursion into the town of
Rafah, just a few kilometers away -- provoking a cycle of retaliations and counter-retaliations and
ensuring that the cease-fire be stillborn.
At another point, the effort of CIA Director George Tenet to set up a system of "security
cooperation" between Israeli and Palestinian security services was met by Israeli helicopters shooting a very
precise missile into a specific Ramallah office, instantly killing Abu-Ali Mustapha, head of the PFLP and member
of the PLO Executive Committee -- in the Palestinian hierarchy, just one rung below Arafat himself.
This assassination of a ministerial level Palestinian leader was soon followed by the revenge assassination of
the Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehav'am Ze'evi.
Ze'evi had been the years-long advocate of the concept "transfer" (i.e. wholesale
expulsion) of the Palestinians; the shock over the assassination of an Israeli government minister gave Ze'evi's
racist ideology a legitimacy it did not have before, as well as providing Sharon with an ideal pretext to launch
a prolonged invasion of six West Bank cities, and foreclosing for a considerable time the possibility of "security
cooperation" or cease-fire. However, Sharon and his ministers did not approve any further assassinations of
ministerial-level Palestinians.
The September 11 factor
To begin with, Washington was far from happy with Israeli military forces invading the
"A" areas, where the Oslo Agreements gave the Palestinians a semi-sovereign status (though no territorial
contiguity or free access to the outside world). This status was, obviously, the very bedrock of the Oslo structure
-- which was the reason Sharon wanted to undermine it.
In Sharon's first months, the most which he found the Americans willing to tolerate were
limited incursions by Israeli forces into the margins of Palestinian-held territory, which could be explained away
as "hot pursuit" and which were terminated within a few hours, without Washington needing to take official
notice.
No Copy
On one occasion, which in retrospect seems highly innocent, Israeli forces penetrated
two kilometers into Palestinian-held territory at the north Gaza Strip and took up positions in uninhabited fields
outside
Page 3
the town of Beit Hanoun; since they were still there by the time of the daily State Department press briefing,
awkward questions were asked by several journalists, resulting in Secretary of State Powell phoning and tongue-lashing
Sharon, which led to the forces being immediately removed (see TOI-98, p.3).
For several months, Sharon had to accept the "A" areas as being beyond his reach
and content himself with grabbing Orient House, the Palestinian headquarters in East Jerusalem which had enjoyed
a de-facto extra-territorial status since 1991 and whose occupation could be claimed to be in the province of the
police. The big breakthrough, from the PM's point of view, was provided by the unexpected and cataclysmic events
of September 11, throwing America into the frenzy of the "War on Terrorism."
When Sharon launched the "Ze'evi Invasion", sending tanks to occupy portions
of six West Bank cities with considerable loss of Palestinian life and damage to property (particularly in Bethlehem),
America itself was already deeply sunk in the mind set of trampling upon civilian lives and international conventions
in the cause of the "War against Terror."
Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, ruthlessly engaged in the campaign in Afghanistan, revealed
himself as Sharon's soul-mate and unreserved supporter. At the same time, however, Secretary of State Powell
was absorbed in efforts to mobilize diplomatic support in the Arab and Muslim World, for which an American gesture
towards the long-suffering Palestinians seemed indicated.
As a result of the conflicting pressures, the administration expressed a lukewarm disapproval
of Sharon's occupation of the six cities, asking him to remove his forces but giving him several weeks in which
to conduct the operation.
President Bush rejected proposals by the Arab states to meet with Arafat during the deliberations
of the UN General Assembly, but did approve a policy speech by Secretary Powell at Louisville, Kentucky, in which
several points seemed designed to appeal to Palestinian sensibilities: condemnation of the Israeli occupation "counterbalancing"
condemnation of Palestinian terrorism, a definite American commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian
state (though without defining the exact border), and the appointment of a new American mediator, former Marines
General Anthony Zinni.
Meanwhile, however, the unexpectedly swift collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
had the effect of generating in Washington an euphoria of arrogance, and Powell's efforts to mollify the Arab regimes
and public opinion by gestures to the Palestinians suddenly looked redundant. The change in American attitudes
was clinched by a highly effective new provocation undertaken by Sharon.
Sharon's season
On Tuesday, November 27, Envoy Zinni was due to arrive in the region. Four days earlier
-- on Friday, November 23 -- Israeli helicopters shot missiles which hit a Palestinian car near
Nablus, instantly killing a man named Mahmud Abu Hunud, a Hamas leader prominent in his organization and highly
popular among the Palestinian masses, especially due to his escaping several previous assassination attempts, which
gave him a "Scarlet Pimpernel" reputation -- in short, a man for whose assassination retribution
was certain to come.
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NO COPYRIGHT
Our articles may be reprinted, provided they include the address The Other Israel POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.
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The implications were set out two days later in a remarkable critical article by security
commentator Alex Fishman, published prominently on the front page of Yediot Aharonot, Israel's biggest mass circulation
daily, which apparently reflected the opinion of dissident elements within the army and security services.
"(...) Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that
he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Under
that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line [pre-'67 border],
having come to the understanding that it would be better not to play into Israel's hands by mass attacks on its
population centres. This understanding was, however, shattered by the assassination the day before yesterday
-- and whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu knew in advance that that would be the price. The subject
had been extensively discussed both by the military and the political echelon, before it was decided to carry out
the liquidation" (Yediot Aharonot, 25.11.2002).
The retribution came on schedule, just as Zinni was making his preliminary diplomatic
efforts: on December 1, two Hamas suicide bombers exploded themselves at Jerusalem and Haifa, with a total death
toll of 26 random Israeli civilians. In Israel there was an atmosphere of public shock and outrage, with no mention
of the warning made a week before by Fishman and others (even Fishman himself made no mention of it in his later
articles...).
It certainly played brilliantly into the hands of Sharon, who bypassed Zinni, went directly
to the White House and conducted a visit resembling a triumphal procession. American officials, up to President
Bush personally, vied with each other in public denunciations of Arafat and the Palestinians, now castigated as
"bad guys" in the cosmic struggle against terrorism. Sharon was given a virtually free hand for military
action against the Palestinians, the only exception being "not to kill Arafat or completely dismantle the
Palestinian Authority."
With that kind of backing from the President of the United States, Sharon could afford
to adopt an openly contemptuous attitude to his Foreign Minister and ram through the cabinet what amounted to a
declaration of war against the "terrorist-supporting" Palestinian Authority, ruling out Arafat as a partner
for any future negotiations. As Sharon expected, Peres and the other Labor ministers did not dare resign, contenting
themselves with powerless and futile protests.
Page 4
The tanks went back into the Palestinian cities which they had vacated just a few weeks
before -- this time with an official American blessing, dubbing it "an act of self-defence."
At the same time, an intensive bombing campaign was launched.
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During the Dec. 2 cabinet session, Peace Now called upon Gush Shalom and others to join
in an "instant picket." Several dozen activists spread their signs facing the closed gate of the Prime
Minister's Office: There is no military solution -- Return to negotiations now -- End the
occupation, end the bloodshed. Did Sharon and his ministers hear something of the hour-long chanting 'One, two,
three, four, we don't want another war' and 'Assassinations and bombardments breed suiciders'.
It was the beginning of what became regular weekly Peace Now vigils on Saturday night
outside the PM's residence. Attendance rose to hundreds and simultaneous vigils were added in Tel-Aviv and Haifa.
Peace Now, POB 29828, Tel-Aviv peacenow@actcom.co.il
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Installations of the Palestinian police and security services -- the same
police and security services which Arafat was supposed to deploy against terrorism -- were systematically
destroyed. So were symbols of the budding Palestinian sovereignty: Israeli tanks and bulldozers invaded and destroyed
the Gaza International Airport, ceremoniously inaugurated three years earlier by President Bill Clinton in person;
helicopters and commando units destroyed the antennas and studios of the Voice of Palestine and the Palestinian
TV (which, however, managed to continue broadcasting from alternative premises).
Most heavily targeted was any location having something to with Yasser Arafat personally:
the offices kept for his use in various Palestinian cities were destroyed, as were his helicopters and cars, and
later his Gaza residence; another bombing raid left Arafat's personal cook dead from a direct hit; and while the
American directive was adhered to and all these raids stopped short of the Ramallah office where Arafat actually
was, Israeli tanks approached within sight of that office and directed their guns straight at Arafat's window.
"Arafat is not to leave Ramallah until further notice, first he must prove his determination
to fight terrorism by arresting the killers of Minister Ze'evi" announced Sharon. Israeli soldiers at the
roadblocks tightly surrounding Ramallah were instructed to thoroughly check Palestinian cars, "lest Arafat
try to smuggle himself out of the city", and the military instruction was gloatingly released to the media.
The siege of Arafat was accompanied by a massive campaign of vilification and demonization.
Getting rid of Arafat became a fashionable issue. Respectable commentators, in Israel and abroad, wrote an enormous
volume of articles based on the premise that Arafat's career had come to an end and started speculating on the
shape of the "post-Arafat period"; such ideas as the imposition of a puppet regime, the breaking up of
the Palestinian Authority into isolated "cantons" ruled by suppliant "warlords" or the reimposition
of direct Israeli military rule began to circulate as legitimate scenarios on which to base concrete political
and military action.
The anti-Arafat campaign had the notable international success of getting the European
Union -- hitherto the Palestinians' main base of support on the international arena --
to make tough demands on Arafat to "fight terrorism", accompanied by barely-concealed threats of withdrawing
Europe's diplomatic and financial support. This, more than anything else, highlighted the Palestinian plight and
severe predicament.
Arafat's acrobatics
Unlike some well-spread descriptions of his character, Yasser Arafat is a leader quite
capable of perceiving hard realities and taking tough decisions in response. In this particular impasse, Arafat
decided on December 16 to bite the bullet and make a speech calling upon his people to observe a complete cease
fire. It must have been an extremely difficult decision to call a cease-fire under such conditions: with no achievement
whatsoever to show his people after more than a year of terrible deprivations and daily casualties, without even
any assurance that a cease fire would at least involve removal of the threatening Israeli tanks under Arafat's
own window.
Still, he did it, and it was a turning point -- visible as such at the time,
and even more obvious in retrospect. Palestinians listened to it, in their towns and villages and refugee camps.
Israelis listened to it attentively, too, for all the government's talk that Arafat had become "irrelevant."
(The speech was broadcast live, with a simultaneous translation, on Israeli radio.) And though government speakers
did all they could to belittle it, the hope of an end to the fear and bloodshed could not quite be quenched.
On the following days, it became obvious that these had not just been empty words. The
number of confrontations and incidents reported by the army dropped sharply, and kept dropping day after day. The
Palestinian police and security services worked diligently to enforce the truce upon all factions and militias.
So did, to the surprise of some observers, the independently-minded Tanzim militia of Arafat's Fatah Party. Whatever
their private reservations, the Tanzim leaders in the various towns -- who had borne a major part in
the previous months' fighting -- took an active role in following their supreme chief's instructions
for a cease fire.
As might have been expected, Hamas was more difficult to convince. There were armed confrontations
when the Palestinian Police entered the Hamas strongholds in Gaza, and six Palestinians were killed in internecine
struggle. But the Hamas leadership, too, was not insensible of the difficult situation which followed their falling
into Sharon's trap, and did not wish to add to it by presenting Sharon with the spectacle of a full-scale Palestinian
civil war.
After two days of confrontations at Gaza, reconciliation talks between the Hamas leadership
and the Palestinian Authority resulted in a formal Hamas undertaking to suspend any further suicide bombings.
In the bloody times which were to follow it
Page 5
sometimes seemed incredible to realize that we so recently lived through such a period.
For nearly a month, in late December and early January, there had been hardly any Israeli
casualties, with the notable exception of four hapless soldiers killed in a guerrilla raid on an isolated outpost
in the Gaza Strip -- the one conspicuous cease-fire violation on the Palestinian side. (The Palestinians
killed by Israeli fire in various incidents while the cease-fire was in force were more numerous, and got much
less media attention.)
Most important from the average Israeli's point of view, it was a time with no suicide
bombings at all, a time when the daily life threat on the streets of every city seemed to recede.
Sharon could have taken credit for it. He could have claimed to have broken the intifada,
to have proven that determined use of military force can and does bring results. It would have been difficult to
refute him. But he did nothing of the kind. From day one, the Prime Minister was visibly unhappy with the cease-fire,
sneering at it, exaggerating any minor infraction and incident, doing all he could to discredit and eventually
destroy it.
Of course, Sharon had his reasons. For one thing, acknowledging that a cease-fire had
indeed taken hold would oblige him to enter seriously upon the path of negotiations. It would mean implementing
the Mitchell recommendations, among them the obligation to completely freeze any construction in the settlements
-- which would imply a head-on collision with his coalition partners of the extreme right, and was against
the grain of Sharon's own basic ideology and decades-long career. And all that would just be the prelude to more
far-reaching concessions, which Sharon evidently was not at all minded to get involved in.
Beyond all such rational considerations, however, Sharon seems to have entered into a
vendetta with Arafat, the hated foe who eluded his grasp in 1982 and whom he was unwilling to let escape again.
Having brought the Americans so far, it seemed in December entirely realistic that one more push, one more provocation,
would gain for him Washington's permission to land a smashing coup de grace. "At last Arik got Arafat's neck
into the guillotine, he will not let him take it out again" was how an unnamed Sharon aide was quoted in Yediot
Aharonot.
And so, Sharon flatly refused to relax the siege upon Arafat in Ramallah, even when a
good face-saving formula presented itself -- Christmas, the time when Arafat is habitually invited
by the Christian authorities to be present at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Rejecting calls from the
Vatican, the Europeans, the Labor ministers and even President Katzav, Sharon would not let Arafat take the brief
trek from Ramallah to Bethlehem. In the event, the TV cameras broadcasting around the globe the solemnities of
Mass in Bethlehem concentrated on the empty chair bearing the inscription "Yasser Arafat, President of Palestine."
Sharon persisted in claiming that besieging Arafat in Ramallah was weakening him. Actually,
it enormously increased Arafat's popularity among his own people. Surely, a people suffering daily deprivations
from severe restrictions on their freedom of movement can find no better rallying point than a leader whose own
freedom of movement is curtailed, and who faces that situation with proud defiance.
'The Palestinian leader was calm, more so than I have seen him for a long time. The trembling of his limbs has
disappeared, and so had the tired look. He reminded me of our first meeting in Beirut, July 1982, in the middle
of another siege.
In a jovial mood he led us to the window and pointed out the Israeli tanks stationed a
hundred meters away, their cannons on target (...). Even those Palestinians who used to criticize Arafat's style
of management admit there is nobody like him in an existential crisis -- the personification of Palestinian
determination to defend their national existence.'
[Avnery on Gush Shalom tour for journalists Ma'ariv Jan.26]
Arafat's besieged headquarters in Ramallah became the scene of daily mass visits by Palestinians,
holding emotive rallies in the hall from whose windows the tanks were visible. The place was also visited by quite
a few international delegations, and to Sharon's chagrin, by Israeli peace activists as well.
On Feb. 2, three hundred peace activists came with the Jewish-Arab Ta'ayush group, successfully
circumvented the army roadblocks and arrived in Ramallah. After an hour-long meeting with the Palestinian leader,
the large group advanced towards the tanks, shouting (in Hebrew) 'Soldiers, go home!' and were showered with tear
gas. "When you are not here, they shoot live bullets" a young Palestinian commented.
Hudna denied
The cease-fire spirit took hold of a quite unexpected person: Israel's president Moshe
Katzav, who until being elevated to his present (purely titular) eminence used to be an average hawkish politician,
but who seems to have developed a desire to leave a more significant mark than presiding at banquets.
Katzav got a chance through a creative initiative of the maverick journalist/businessman/peace
activist Eyal Ehrlich. While on a business trip to Jordan, Ehrlich had the chance to observe first-hand the proceedings
of a Hudna -- the way of resolving feuds in traditional Islamic societies, in which reconciliation visits by clan
elders play a key part.
Inspired to try and adapt the Hudna format to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ehrlich
came to the idea of having the President of Israel address the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah with
a conciliatory speech -- which would lead to a formal proclamation of a year's truce of a kind held
sacrosanct in Muslim tradition and which should create an atmosphere conductive to renewed peace negotiations.
Ehrlich approached both Katzav and Arafat through various mediators and got a positive response; but as soon as
the idea leaked into the media, Sharon was quick to express his total
Page 6
opposition. Though formally Israel's Head of State, the President -- like a constitutional monarch --
is bound by the elected government's policies, and Katzav saw no choice but to yield to the PM's veto.
Before the controversy over the Katzav Affair had time to die out, a completely different
sensation was offered to the public: regular radio and TV broadcasts were disrupted by a special press conference,
featuring Prime Minister Sharon surrounded by generals and admirals. A dramatic announcement was made: Israel's
Naval Commandos had just intercepted a Palestinian ship in the Red Sea, a ship loaded to the gunwales with munitions.
The brave commandos, it was told, had saved their country from grave danger, since the arms could have given the
Palestinians "a strategic advantage", and proving the perfidy and treachery of the Palestinians and of
Arafat in particular.
Still, an iconoclastic article by writer David Grossman in Ha'aretz reminded that the
pre-'48 Jewish militias resorted to precisely that kind of gun running, and pointed out that a single IDF armory
contains far more munitions than that entire ship -- not to speak of the firepower of an F-16 fighter;
and Grossman was followed by quite a few other dissident voices in the media, and some in the political system
as well.
But Sharon did achieve something: after initial reluctance the US Administration did take
up the issue, when Israeli intelligence officers were flown into Washington to present evidence that the Palestinian
contraband had originated in Iran, part of President Bush's infamous "Axis of Evil." There followed a
new wave of American recriminations with and threats upon the Palestinians, and Envoy Zinni's second visit to the
region was as dismal a failure as the first one.
Meanwhile, the army made what became a widely-publicized incursion into the Rafah Refugee
Camp in the Gaza Strip, destroying some sixty or seventy Palestinian homes in a single night (the exact number
remains disputed). The photos of children scrabbling in the rubble of their destroyed homes touched the conscience
of Israel as few things did in the past year. The government found itself the target of scathing criticism in the
press, including from columnists who had hitherto kept their silence and some who previously supported Sharon.
The army's explanations that the destroyed houses had been "uninhabited" and that their destruction had
been "an operational necessity" found few takers outside the hard-core right-wing.
After three days of this, Sharon was forced to issue a vaguely-worded apology and a promise
not to do it again. On the same day -- Monday, January 14 -- he also decisively terminated
the cease-fire.
An assassination too far
In the far gone days of three years ago, when an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord seemed
imminent, a meeting was held at a resort north of Tel-Aviv between the younger members of Israel's then-ruling
Labor Party and their opposite numbers of the Fatah Party, Yasser Arafat's main base of support. By some accounts,
later hotly denied, there was among the Palestinian delegation a young man from Tul Karm named Ra'ed Karmi. At
the time, this name had no special significance, and if he had really been there he made no special impression
on his Israeli interlocutors.
In the turbulent times after the Intifada outbreak, repeated "targeted killings"
by the Israeli army and security services in Tul Karm created some vacancies at the top of the local leadership.
Karmi was revealed to have considerable military talent and charisma, and within a year was the unquestioned leader
of the local militia. By then, he also figured prominently on the Israeli army's "most wanted" list,
accused of involvement in the killing of nine Israelis, some of them random civilians killed in retribution for
assassinations.
In the last months of 2001, Ra'ed Karmi survived several Israeli assassination attempts,
which as in the case of Abu Hunud only added to his reputation. He was well aware of living on borrowed time. An
Israeli TV crew which entered Tul Karm under his personal safe-conduct filmed him walking openly through the city's
main street, rifle in hand. In an interview shown that night at Israeli living rooms, he said: "I am not afraid
of being assassinated. My fate is in God's hands. If I fall, my comrades will take revenge for me, like I avenged
those who came before me."
Palestinian sources say that Ra'ed Karmi fully supported Arafat's decision to declare
a cease-fire, and helped implement it in his area of command. Israel's security services say that on the morning
of January 14, when he was killed by an Israeli-laid booby trap, Karmi was involved in planning terrorist operations
-- the same claim as was made in earlier assassinations, and as in the other cases accompanied by no proof.
Certainly, Ra'ed Karmi was much less of an innocent victim than many of the other 1400
Palestinians and Israelis killed in a year and half of bloody confrontations. Just as certainly, there could have
been no doubt that killing him would immediately shatter the cease-fire and unleash a whirlwind of revenge and
bloodshed.
It was a repetition of the Abu-Hunud assassination and its consequences, but with some
significant differences. For one, the outburst of Palestinian retribution started not after a week, but literally
within hours of the assassination. And this time it was not the militants of Hamas who were at the forefront of
the attacks, but the Tanzim militiamen, Arafat's own followers.
Most important, the gambit had been used one time too many, and this time it stood fully
exposed to the public gaze. 'Assassinations breed suicide bombers' chanted the Peace Now youths in emergency vigils
outside the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv and the Prime Ministry's residence in Jerusalem. The same message was
repeated in official statements by all sections of the peace movements -- no longer only in the
ads of Gush Shalom. It came up in Knesset speeches and media appearances of Yossi Sarid, official head of the opposition;
in numerous press
Page 7
articles and media commentaries; and even (though in a less explicit form) in the utterances of Foreign Minister
Peres.
It made a great deal of difference. Unlike the previous cycles of violence, Israeli society
entered this one without the conviction that blame was to be attached to the Palestinians and to the Palestinians
alone. In October 2000, Israelis were told -- and nearly all believed -- that Barak had
made generous offers to the Palestinians and that they responded with rejection and violence; now, many of the
same people could plainly see that Arafat had made a cease-fire and that it was Sharon who broke it.
It was at this time that the peace movement finally began to break out of the the marginalization
which it suffered since the Intifada outbreak. Vigils and rallies became bigger and bigger, and new peace groups
mushroomed. The refusal of soldiers and officers to serve the occupation took center stage. So did the previously
taboo idea that "our" soldiers may actually be involved in war crimes, that practices daily undertaken
by the army of occupation might constitute grave violations of International Law.
And radical ideas got the sympathy of substantial minorities, as evident in the 25% expressing
support for the refusers. Sharon's hitherto unshakable popularity was fast eroding, as clearly visible in all opinion
polls. The atmosphere of "national unity" which prevailed throughout 2001 was fast dissipating, to be
replaced by dissent and often acrimonious debate -- which also included, on the opposite side of the
spectrum, an upsurge of the extreme right, calling for total reconquest of the Palestinian cities and openly advocating
ethnic cleansing ("population transfer").
In the Labor Party, the minority calling for the party to leave the Sharon Government
became increasingly active and vocal, and its campaign influenced also the party's more opportunistic elements.
Defence Minister Ben Eliezer, recently elected party leader in hotly contested internal
elections held among Laborites throughout the country, started an effort to appear slightly more dovish --
at least in nuances, such as the duration of military offensives against the Palestinians and the amount of military
forces used in them. He had been advised he would stand little chance of winning an election as "a carbon
copy of Sharon."
For his part, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, Ben Eliezer's great rival -- a
man who started his political career as a Peace Now activist, but who later considerably mellowed his tone
-- now took an outspoken line of condemning "the corrupting occupation" and stating that the solution
would be "exchanging the complete territory for a complete peace."
Burg also took up where President Katzav left off, declaring his intention to address
the Palestinian Parliament in Ramallah and announcing that -- unlike the president -- he
was determined to go there even against the opposition of the Prime Minister. Burg aroused great anger in the parliamentary
right wing, where an unsuccessful effort was mounted to unseat him from his position as Speaker, and correspondingly
won considerable kudos in his own constituency. Up to the time of writing, however, he did not actually go to Ramallah.
Downward spiral
The dissatisfaction with the functioning of Sharon as Prime Minister was also influenced
by the deteriorating economic situation. Unemployment reached new records, with more and more factories and enterprises
closing down, and economists predicted little or no economic growth in 2002.
The weeks of cease-fire allowed public attention to focus, for some time, on socioeconomic
issues. In the absence of shooting incidents, the headlines were captured by workers bitterly protesting the loss
of their jobs. A militant struggle by the disabled got much public sympathy, as in their wheelchairs they held
a months-long sit-in strike in front of the finance ministry, demanding an increase in their allowances.
The government budget for 2002 was approved far behind schedule, in February rather then
December. Its passage required considerable wrangling and sometimes sordid deals between Sharon and his numerous
coalition partners.
The budget finally cobbled together held no glimmer of hope for the poorer Israelis who
are the main electoral base of Sharon's Likud Party.
In many ways, the economic crisis could be traced to the ongoing conflict.
Since the Intifada outbreak, tourism -- one of the Israeli economy's mainstays -- has been
all but completely ruined. Israel has become far less attractive to foreign investors, many of whom nowadays hesitate
even to come for a short visit -- much less, to put their money into such a dangerous country. Apprehension
of suicide bombings drove many Israelis to avoid the city centers, leading to the collapse of shops, cafes and
restaurants particularly in downtown Jerusalem.
Also the terrible blow dealt by Israel to the Palestinian economy, virtually shattered
by the Israeli army's imposition of closures, sieges and travel restrictions, recoiled back upon Israel itself.
With the general impoverishment of the Palestinian population and its severe loss of purchasing power, the Israeli
firms dependent upon exports to the Palestinian market started to suffer, some of them to the point of collapse.
Altogether, government economists estimate the losses, as direct and indirect result of
the ongoing confrontation with the Palestinians, at five billion dollars. In January, opinion polls started showing
the public massively losing confidence in Sharon's ability to conduct the economy, while still having faith in
him as a military leader. A few weeks later, with the mutual Israeli-Palestinian carnage growing worse and worse
and Sharon plainly having no solution, and with the economy simultaneously sliding further down, the public started
to doubt Sharon's credentials in all spheres.
An attempt by the Prime Minister to hold a televised "address to the nation"
-- with his main theme being "The security and economic situation
Page 8
are both bad, the struggle to improve them will be long, but we must be patient and steadfast and united and in
the end we will win" -- was greeted with derision and a further slide in his popularity ratings.
Sitting ducks
Immediately upon the assassination of Ra'ed Karmi, a Palestinian gunman crossed into the
Israeli town of Hadera, and in an indiscriminate shooting spree at a family celebration killed six random Israeli
civilians. In the weeks which followed, however, the leadership of the Fatah-Tanzim militia seemed to have taken
a decision to concentrate upon guerrilla attacks against soldiers and settlers in the Occupied Territories themselves.
The other Palestinian organizations mostly followed suit.
It did make a difference for the public atmosphere in Israel. Israelis certainly mourned
the soldiers killed in the territories, but such Palestinian actions did not carry the same moral repugnance and
aversion aroused by attacks on Israel's population centers. Indeed, in some cases Israeli military officers expressed
a grudging admiration for the "professionalism and courage" of the guerrillas they were facing.
Palestinian fighters evidently imbibed the classical guerrilla maxim -- avoid
your enemy where he is strong and alert, strike unexpectedly at his weak spots -- and in particular,
the lessons and methods of the Hizbullah's campaign against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.
In the Gaza Strip, guerrillas minutely observed the path daily taken by Israeli convoys
to the settlement of Netzarim, an armed enclave directly south of Gaza City itself. A well-laid explosive charge
destroyed an Israeli tank which headed the convoy, a "Merkava" type which until that day had the reputation
of being "the world's best protected tank."
Alarmed commanders promised to make a thorough reexamination and change the routines which
made such a fatal result possible. But the continuing maintenance of a nationalist-religious Israeli settler group
in the heart of Gaza is at the core of this government's policy, not open to question by the military echelon;
the isolated settlement remained in place and precisely a month later, the guerrillas made a second attack, again
at a convoy passing the same route and almost on the same spot, destroying a second Merkava tank.
In the West Bank, the guerrillas found the numerous roadblocks and checkpoints to be the
IDF's weakest point -- as well as being the aspect of the occupation most resented by the general Palestinian
population. Located so as to control Palestinian traffic, these roadblocks involved small military detachments
placed in isolated positions, occasionally located at the bottom of canyons (where the roads run) and --
in contradiction with elementary military principles -- without securing the commanding heights on
the flanks.
Moreover, with the regular army stretched out to its very limits, the roadblocks were
often manned by rear-echelon troops with little combat training.
The results were fatal -- 17 soldiers killed within two weeks, in a series
of guerrilla attacks on roadblocks.
In the most deadly incident a single Palestinian sniper, armed with an old but still serviceable
WW II carbine, went on shooting for half an hour, killed seven soldiers and three of the settlers these were supposed
to be protecting, and calmly walked away before reinforcements could arrive. (The place where this happened is
known in Arabic as Wadi Haramiya, the Canyon of the Robbers, a name reminiscent of earlier practitioners of such
tactics in Ottoman times.) 'You have abandoned us, we have been made into sitting ducks!' reacted surviving soldiers
when senior officers arrived on the spot a few hours later for what was supposed to be a morale-raising visit.
Media reports spread the story further, telling that the Harmiya Checkpoint had been established due to the pressure
of settlers from nearby settlements.
'If the settlers want to risk their own lives, that is their affair -- but
why did my son have to die?' said the mother of David Demlin, one of the ten killed soldiers, who told the press
that her son had seriously considered signing the refusers' letter.
Peace proposals & broken promises
Concurrently with his plummeting domestic popularity, Sharon could feel the climate in
Washington starting to change.
True, the Americans continued to give public backing to Sharon's ongoing campaign of bombings
and invasions of Palestinian cities, which were called "self-defence" in official US communiques. However,
the administration politely but firmly rejected Sharon's proposals about ousting Arafat and seeking some elusive
"alternative Palestinian leadership." Since he had already tried almost everything else, without breaking
the Palestinian resolve, the continuing American backing to his military actions was of little avail to Sharon.
Adding to his predicament was the sudden peace initiative offered by the Saudi Crown Prince,
publicized through the mediation of the renowned Tom Friedman of the New York Times. On public offer was full peace
between Israel and the entire Arab World, in return for full withdrawal to the 1967 borders.
A clarification, delivered through Henry Siegman of the American Jewish Congress, indicated
the Saudis willing to accept Israeli retention of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, in line with
some proposals made at the last stage of negotiations under Barak.
The proposal made quite an impression on the war-weary Israeli society. The past year
and half made Israelis highly suspicious of the Palestinians, and doubtful of any promise made or agreement signed
by a Palestinian leader (a feeling amply reciprocated on the Palestinian side).
An agreement backed by the entire Arab World and brokered by one of its most prestigious
and powerful states, a state which hitherto stayed on the sidelines,
Page 9
seemed to offer a more solid assurance for the future; opinion polls indicated about half of the Israeli public
(48% in one poll, 54% in another) willing to accept the Saudi proposal. Past experience indicates that, should
the government accept the proposal, this could quickly mount to a big, solid majority.
Sharon, however, had no intention of accepting the 1967 borders or anything like them,
regardless of what was offered in return. He did not, of course, reject the initiative outright. Rather, he tried
to hedge, proposing to meet the Saudis. Such a meeting would in itself constitute a major act of normalization
without obliging Sharon on the territorial issue. To nobody's surprise, the Saudis declined this generous offer.
Saudi efforts were concentrated on gathering the support of key Arab states for their
initiative, with a view to officially presenting it for approval at the Arab Summit, due to meet in Beirut at the
end of March. This, they made clear, would only take place with Arafat present there, at the side of the other
Arab leaders; without Arafat, the summit would end with a routine resolution to support the Palestinian struggle
against Israel.
Thus, the issue of the continuing siege of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters was placed squarely
and urgently on the Israeli agenda. And it became even more urgent when Palestinian police did arrest --
as demanded by Sharon -- those responsible for the assassination of Minister Ze'evi.
As a result, a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials was convened with
a view to achieving a cease-fire. Defence Minister Ben Eliezer proposed to the inner cabinet setting Arafat free,
but the extreme right ministers threatened to immediately resign.
The Defence Minister warned of dire results from failing to keep Israel's part of the
bargain. What resulted was a "compromise": the tanks withdrew a few hundred metres from the immediate
vicinity of Arafat's headquarters, and the cabinet announced that Arafat is "free to move within Ramallah,
but must ask Sharon's permission for going anywhere else."
The resolution was taken by the Palestinians as the deliberate insult it was, and on the
following day there was a new series of deadly Palestinian attacks. "I told you so" unofficial leaks
quoted Ben-Eliezer as saying. The minister's spokesman quickly denied that his boss ever said such words, but the
incident further revealed the growing cracks in Sharon's national unity government.
Cyclone of war
For some time the settler leaders and their political representatives had been pushing
their own proposal for "solving" the conflict: reoccupying all the Palestinian cities, conducting house-to-house
searches for munitions, shooting down any Palestinian found in possession of arms, arresting, killing or deporting
all "terrorists", and then "negotiating" with the cowed remnant on limited autonomy under complete
Israeli sovereignty.
The plan seems to have some relation to contingency plans made by the army, with some
of whose generals the settlers enjoy a close symbiosis. In late February, Sharon decided to authorize the implementation
of an operation more limited in scope than the settlers asked for, but using many of the techniques they advocated.
The plan called for a direct attack on the Palestinian refugee camps, which had been the focal points of both the
first intifada and the present one and which the army had always avoided entering.
A general mobilization of the reserves, which is what the hardliners demanded, would have
been tantamount to war; also, a significant number of reservists might have been found refusing to obey the call-up
order. Instead, the operation was planned based on the manpower available in the regular army alone.
Even with training stopped and all available units pressed into the operation, there were
not enough to attack all camps at once. Instead, a sweep was planned, going roughly north to south, with the units
continually leapfrogging from one refugee camp to the next. In between, the air force was to carry out massive
bombings in the places not invaded at that moment, with the navy to take part by shelling targets on the Gazan
shore. So commenced what proved the most terrible days (so far) in the ongoing cyclone of violence.
Before the Intifada broke out, the army estimated that invading the Palestinian
areas in general and the refugee camps in particular would involve a prohibitive number of Israeli casualties,
dozens or even hundreds. Since October 2000, however, the army's best minds were drafted to develop specific tactics
and strategies which would keep casualties to the most bare minimum.
Under the new doctrine, an invasion would always be carried out under cover of darkness;
the soldiers would come in overwhelming strength -- battalions in the early invasions, later increased
to brigades; infantry would always be accompanied by numerous tanks and helicopter gun ships, ready to use their
firepower to crush all opposition; movement through the streets of a conquered city would take place almost always
inside armored vehicles; infantry soldiers would swiftly seize strategically located buildings and transform them
into military positions, with Palestinian inhabitants either expelled or restricted to one room; withdrawal from
the city carried out again at night and in armored vehicles.
For operations at refugee camps, with their narrow alleys and closely-packed huts, the
soldiers would break the walls and thus move from one house to another without going into the street and exposing
themselves to sniper fire. ("Yes, the inhabitants would later have to repair their homes -- such
are the fortunes of war" remarked a commander on Israeli radio.)
The army's plan was carried out, more or less on schedule. No less than 20,000 soldiers
were assigned to the operation. The conquest of the refugee camps was accomplished at the cost to the Israeli side
of more or less one dead Israeli soldier per camp -- truly
Page 10
minimal losses, to everybody but the particular soldier's family.
Palestinian losses were staggering, more than 200 in one week, nearly fifty of them on
a single day -- March 8, 'Red Friday'.
TV screens were filled with the images of hundreds of Palestinian men taken captive, their
hands tied behind their backs with plastic handcuffs and their eyes covered with rags, led through the streets
of conquered refugee camps.
--------------
On the night of March 15, Israel's Second Channel TV showed on prime time the footage
taken by its correspondent who followed the fighting forces in Ramallah: the soldiers approaching the door of a
Palestinian house, knocking and at getting no response blowing up the door; a girl crying near the body of her
mother, severely wounded in the explosion; the Palestinian family huddled in their living room, closely guarded
by armed soldiers; a bespectacled soldier, sitting on the Palestinians' sofa, saying to the camera: 'What are we
doing here? I have no idea. A Hebrew boy so far from the Homeland...' (His name, as Ma'ariv found out, Uri Yaniv.)
The following day, Defence Minister Ben Eliezer announced a ban on any further coverage
of military operations by journalists.
--------------
The practice of writing numbers on the prisoners' wrists aroused a storm of protests,
even from middle-of-the-road Knesset Members, who were reminded of the Nazi treatment of concentration camp inmates.
Meanwhile, it soon turned out that most of the "heavy terrorists" which the
army wanted were not among these captives. Rather than stay and fight to the death against impossible odds, they
slipped away to deliver heavy blows in less well-guarded spots, and come back unscathed once the army vacated their
homes and went on to another camp.
Paratrooper Colonel Aviv Kochavi, in command of conquering Balata Refugee camp in Nablus,
gloated on Israeli radio: 'We were told there were tigers here, but we found only kittens.' Within a few hours
he had to eat his words, as some of the "kittens" launched both a lethal suicide bombing in Jerusalem
and a withering attack on an army checkpoint.
In the heat of the struggle, the distinctions between different Palestinian groups blurred,
militants of the Tanzim, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Marxist factions fighting together. The idea of restricting
the struggle to guerrilla attacks targeting soldiers was lost in the popular anger at the killings and destruction
and the clamor for instant retribution. No longer were suicide bombers restricted to the Islamic organizations
alone; an increasing part of them came from the ranks of Fatah.
It was a confusing time for Israelis. The hundreds of Palestinian casualties provided
no consolation for the dozens of Israeli ones. Every morning the radio announced the conquest of yet another Palestinian
town or refugee camp; every afternoon came news of yet another deadly Palestinian raid into an Israeli town. And
in addition, an attack left six Israelis dead in the Lebanese border zone, an area which had been quiet since the
withdrawal from Lebanon two years ago. It was generally attributed to infiltrators from across the northern border,
though Hizbullah declined to take official responsibility.
The world awakens
Belatedly, President Bush realized that the fire which he had let Sharon set was endangering
his own agenda. Specifically, the escalation between Israel and the Palestinians threatened to completely derail
Vice President Cheney's long-planned visit to the region and foil the effort to create an anti-Saddam front, to
which the administration decided to give its first priority.
In a dramatic press conference, the president announced that he was sending Zinni back
to the region within a week's time, and called upon the sides "to reach a cease fire by themselves, even ahead
of Zinni's arrival." Bush's reasons for this week-long hiatus are still unclear. In the event, they left time
for the worst carnage still to unfold.
Immediately upon the Bush pronouncement, Sharon made a seemingly conciliatory gesture
-- announcing that he was giving up his demand of "seven days of complete quiet" as a precondition
for negotiations. This was, however, coupled with intensification of the military campaign of "increasing
the number of Palestinian casualties" -- the aim quite openly defined the Prime Minister a few
days earlier.
In another move of the simultaneous game Sharon passed through the cabinet a decision
to allow Arafat movement from Ramallah to other locations in Palestinian territory, but not abroad. The decision
outraged Sharon's extreme-right allies and made them keep their threat to bolt the government.
Arafat himself was not overjoyed. He refrained from immediately leaving Ramallah, at a
time that large-scale Israeli forces were visibly converging on the city. Arafat had good reasons to suspect that,
after three months of keeping him bottled up in Ramallah, Sharon suddenly wanted him out of the way in order to
smooth the way of an invasion.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of settlers and their supporters were bussed into Tel-Aviv
where they held a turbulent rally in the Rabin Square, their speakers calling upon Sharon "to finish off the
evil Palestinian Authority, once and for all." Just as they boarded the bullet-proof buses back to their settlements,
massive military forces started moving into Ramallah.
It was the biggest Israeli military operation since 1982. A full infantry division accompanied
by hundreds of tanks, a large fraction of the Israeli army's total fighting strength, was deployed in order to
conquer a single Palestinian city defended by lightly-armed militiamen. "Resistance was scattered, the operation
was carried out on schedule" announced the army spokesman, belittling the killing of a dozen young Palestinians
which the smooth operation took.
"The army swung a mighty fist, and landed it on the air" remarked the well-informed
Nahum Barn'ea of Yediot Aharonot. The operation was hampered by the
Page 11
continuing presence of Arafat in Ramallah. The sector around the Palestinian leader's headquarters remained sacrosanct,
the military plans having been revised at the last moment, and most of the "wanted" Palestinians thus
found a refuge.
An attempt by Sharon to order the tanks into that area caused an open row with Ben Eliezer,
and according to eye-witnesses developed into "the most stormy cabinet meeting since the formation of the
Sharon government."
Meanwhile, Israeli embassies around the world started sounding the alarm, warning the
government of "a PR disaster." Footage of tanks crushing Palestinian ambulances, of the long rows of
blindfolded prisoners under guard, but also of Israeli soldiers invading living rooms of Palestinian families and
throwing clothes out of the cupboards, were more and more eroding whatever goodwill towards Israel was left.
With the army's entry into Ramallah, the army found itself under the close observation
of the many international media representatives located there. Such were the circumstances when the popular Italian
journalist Raffaele Ciriello was shot to death. (The army claimed he had directed his camera at soldiers from the
same direction that Palestinians were shooting.)
Geraldo Rivera, commentator of Fox Television, told his listeners: 'All my life
I have been a Zionist. But after what I saw in Ramallah, I have become a Palestinian. Using tanks and F-16 fighter
planes against a city population, that is not 'fighting terrorism.' It is terrorism.' (Retranslated from Yediot
Aharonot, March 17.)
--------------
From the Gush Shalom ad in Ha'aretz, March 16
Balance Of Terror
This week the Sharon Government reached new peaks of state terrorism. It bombarded Palestinian institutions, shot
at Palestinian ambulances and doctors. More than 200 Palestinians got killed, houses were destroyed, water supplies
and electricity cut, a whole population intimidated and humiliated.
This week the Palestinians undertook guerrilla and terror actions, killing more than 20 Israelis, soldiers and
civilians, sowing fear in the towns and on the roads, even reaching remote areas of the Galilee.
The occupation army and the occupied people have reached a balance of terror.
Everybody's security has gone down the drain.
Gush Shalom, POB 2233, Tel-Aviv, info@gush-shalom.org
--------------
Three days after the army moved into Ramallah, President Bush made another dramatic TV
address, accusing Sharon of being "far from helpful to the success of Zinni's mission" and ordering him
in no uncertain words to terminate the operation forthwith.
On the following morning, the weekend polls in the Israeli press indicated a a new record
low for Sharon. "Sharon hoped to please the left by releasing Arafat and the right by sending the army into
Ramallah. In the event he alienated both. He is also losing the mass of the center voters, simply because he promised
to put an end to the terrorist attacks and is plainly unable to deliver on that promise." wrote Chemi Shalev
in Ma'ariv.
Picking up the pieces
Last December, Sharon was in a position to dictate a cease-fire to Arafat, literally at
gunpoint. That is no longer the case. The Palestinians can now ask a price for going along. First they asked
-- and got -- the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the "A" areas, as a precondition
for starting any cease-fire negotiations. Having gained that, the sticking point in the negotiations --
taking place under Envoy Zinni's auspices at the very time of writing -- are the closures and sieges
which in the past year and half made daily life into hell for the Palestinians.
The general assumption at Zinni's arrival that a cease-fire would soon be signed, was
eroded by the continuation of suicide bombings. And, if a truce is signed, commentators are doubtful about how
far it would be respected and how long it will survive.
The Palestinian police and security services have hardly any premises or prisons left
in which to put terrorists, even if the decision was taken to arrest them; the Israeli bombardments were all too
thorough. More important than the destruction of physical assets, the campaign of the past months clearly changed
the internal balance of forces in the Palestinian society, weakening the Palestinian Authority and its apparatus,
greatly enhancing the prestige and support enjoyed by the various militias and militant groups.
For Palestinian militants to be convinced of the need to suspend their armed struggle
and establish a lasting cease-fire, they would need a clear sign that the end of the occupation can be achieved
by political and diplomatic means.
Sharon, though at the moment in desperate need of a cease-fire for his political survival,
is not likely to end the occupation or dismantle the settlements which he himself established throughout his career.
And the Bush Administration still persists in regarding the Israeli-Palestinian problem as essentially a side show,
to be calmed down and gotten out of the way in preparation for what they really care about -- their
impending operation against Saddam Hussein.
Bush did accept the principle of two states, Israel and Palestine, and even got it enshrined
in a new Security Council Resolution -- but without referring to the all-important issue of borders.
(In theory, Sharon too is willing to accept a Palestinian state -- a "state" composed of
disconnected enclaves.)
As yet, there is little reason to assume that Bush is ready to take up the active mediating
role which consumed so much of his predecessor's time and energy, and in which Clinton so dismally failed.
The Palestinians have undergone all that the most powerful army in the Middle East could
come up with, and emerged unbroken. For the time being, a configuration of local and international public
Page 12
opinion and super-power interests has forced Sharon to stop. But a Sharon who has nothing to lose might just be
biding his time to launch yet another, even more destructive attack -- as a gambler who can't take
his losses. History may well remember Ariel Sharon as the leader who conclusively proved to Israelis that the way
of force does not work, simply by trying it so often and only making things worse.
If there still are grounds for cautious hope, they lie exactly where until a few months
ago we almost gave up looking: in the depth of Israeli society, which shows many signs of having had enough of
the occupation and the toll it takes.
The editors
--------------
Even when the soldiers (...) aimed their rifles at every woman and child who dared go
into the alley, the camp residents agreed: The soldiers are afraid.
That doesn't mean the people in the camp were not afraid. They were very afraid when the
helicopters above fired down into the alleys and within a few hours dozens of unarmed people were wounded; they
were afraid when their armed sons were killed after standing in the alleys; they were afraid when the soldiers,
from positions on the hill opposite the camp, used machine guns to fire into the bedrooms and kitchens and hit
the electrical transformer, plunging the camp into darkness.(...)
In Balata Refugee Camp, they reached the conclusion that without the tanks and helicopters,
the Israeli soldiers sent to the checkpoints and the refugee camps would be stripped of their power - and their
courage. (...) Maybe, someone said hopefully, the fear shows the soldiers don't know what they are doing in Balata.
Our children, said someone, unlike the Israeli children, can't dream of being pilots or
tank commanders when they grow up. (...) They watch TV and are pleased to see in the reports about the terror attacks
that they are not the only ones who are afraid, that in the cities where the soldiers come from, people are afraid,
too. That's why all that is left to them is to dream of putting on an explosives belt and detonating it in Tel
Aviv. Because the game is now who is more afraid, and who is less afraid of dying.
[Amira Hass, Ha'aretz, March 6.]
--------------
+++ On the morning of March 9, hundreds answered the call of Yesh Gvul to demonstrate at the Athlit Military
Prison and express solidarity with the imprisoned refusers. Then, news arrived of terrible killing and destruction
going on at the Palestinian town of Tul Karm, occupied by large military forces two days before. Several dozen
participants, mostly of Ta'ayush and Gush Shalom, went on to hold a second protest at the army roadblock on the
entrance to Tul-Karm and were joined by a large group of inhabitants of the nearby Israeli Arab town of Taibeh,
where many have relatives living in Tul Karm.
+++ During those days, Israeli human rights organizations made desperate efforts to get wounded Palestinians
evacuated from the invaded cities and refugee camps. (Gideon Levy wrote in Ha'aretz about a young field worker
who burst into tears upon receiving the message from beleaguered Jenin that the wounded for whose sake she had
made frantic phone calls to the army had already bled to death.)
By then, it was obvious that ambulances and medical crews were intentionally targeted.
It happened too often and in different places, under the responsibility of different IDF units. In a few days,
several medics and doctors got killed and many wounded. Even when higher commanders promised a safe-conduct, it
did not always get to the soldiers. Dr. Ahmad No'man of Bethlehem's Yamama Hospital was shot down on his way to
get urgently needed medical supplies, in spite of a promise to the Red Cross that he would be allowed to pass.
The army claimed that Palestinian ambulances were being used to transport fighters and
munitions. This claim, for which no evidence was produced, was repeated on radio and TV, encouraging soldiers to
regard ambulances as legitimate targets.
+++ At noon on March 12, Palestinian medical crews demonstrated in their uniforms at a military roadblock
outside Jerusalem, and in Tel-Aviv's Museum Square a bullet-riddled Red Crescent ambulance was displayed, transported
(with considerable difficulty) from Tul Karm by the Physicians for Human Rights. Also at the same time, Norwegian
medical teams drove in a protest convoy of ambulances through the streets of Oslo, concluding with a protest outside
the Israeli embassy.
By then, the army had moved over to Ramallah, and from there too started coming news of
shooting at ambulances and denial of medical treatment. On the morning of March 14, the Supreme Court heard PHR's
petition against attacks on ambulances, while dozens of activists demonstrated outside. (The court asked for further
specific evidence on each of the known cases, and demanded that the state give detailed answers for each of these
-- both to come back in ten days' time.)
Later that day, some 200 people took part in a march organized by a whole lot of human
rights organizations (B'tselem, Ta'ayush, ACRI, ICAHD, Kav La'Oved, RHR, Adalah and PHR) from al-Ram Checkpoint
north of Jerusalem to Qalandia Checkpoint at the very entrance to Ramallah -- the closest they could
get to the occupied city. Several trucks, with food and medical supplies, to find their way into the city and deliver
their contents to the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Medical Relief Committee.
PHR, 30 Levanda St., Tel Aviv, Miri@phr.org.il
****
Waking up
by Beate Zilversmidt
When the idea came up in a Gush Shalom planning session to organize a Forum Discussion
on War Crimes, we still didn't have the faintest idea that the atmosphere was about to change. For more than a
year, the increasingly brutal oppression of the Palestinian uprising against the 35-year old occupation had encountered
inside Israel only the protest of "the lunatic fringe."
Page 13
Some two hundred fifty filled the Tzavta Hall in Tel-Aviv on Wednesday evening, Jan. 9.
No less than six speakers sat crowded behind the table: a retired air force colonel, an ex-minister, a professor
in philosophy, a former brigadier general turned social scientist, an expert in international law and a representative
of the PLO. And then there was still a seventh, Haim Hanegbi the moderator who spoke a few words on behalf of Gush
Shalom and at fitting moments came up with a shocking newspaper clipping.
Yigal Shochat, the air force man, spoke first. Apparently unused to public appearances,
he read the whole speech from paper. The idea to invite him was because somebody remembered that in the past months
he had written a letter to the editor calling upon combat pilots to refuse orders to bomb population centers (see
TOI-98, p.24). It had not at all been easy to get him here. The text which he read and in which he passionately
explained his turnabout made an enormous impression (see excerpt on p.26).
Second was the jurist Eyal Gross, who told that soldiers who refuse orders such as to
mount bulldozers and demolish Palestinian houses have more options than just go to prison for reasons of conscience.
If they would let their case come to a court, their lawyer might base a plea on the Geneva Conventions which have
been signed by Israel -- and the case could be won.
With every next speaker there was the expectation that this one would perhaps criticize
what had been said before -- but it didn't happen. Not even when it was the turn of Dov Tamari, the
social scientist with military background and no particular reputation for radicalism. He explained that military
theory is stuck with the ideas of the 19h Century when war was still something between two armies. But during wars
of independence it is a totally different story. "It is a big mistake to define everything which doesn't fit
into the outdated military theory as terrorism."
--------------
The declaration by the Human Rights Committee of the Israeli Bar Association stating that 'Extra judicial execution
of Palestinians constitutes a war crime' startled the general public. Adv. Yossi Arnon, head of the committee,
stood firm against enormous pressures from within the Bar: 'We have merely stated what international law says.
Nothing more.'
--------------
Michael Tarazi of the PLO told that during the years of the Oslo process, the Palestinians
had the shocking experience of finding themselves at the mercy of a negotiating partner who does not consider himself
bound by international law. A straightforward Israeli officer once said it explicitly to his Palestinian interlocutors:
"We will adhere to the Geneva Convention only when we are forced to." But there was nobody to enforce
it.
Professor Adi Ophir showed in the 10 to 15 minutes which he got that philosophers can
sometimes be utterly action-oriented. It was he who called for the peace movement to start collecting evidence
which could be used by a future international war crimes court. "It will deepen our isolation in the Israeli
society" he said (which was what all of us still thought then), "but we have to ask ourselves whether
not the time has come for such an approach, and pay the price."
Shulamit Aloni spoke last -- the Grand Old Lady of Meretz and of the human
rights movement, who had been member of the Rabin government. "We will have to do most of the job ourselves"
she emphasized. "Don't expect too much of the international community. Many people there are too afraid to
be considered anti Semites. It us up to us to go public with the facts."
--------------
The Hebrew and English transcripts of the war crime discussion are to be found on the Gush Shalom website: http://www.gush-shalom.org.
If you don't have access to the internet you may order it from The Other Israel, pob 2542, Holon 58125 Israel.
Please, add $5 (cash only!) for expenses.
--------------
As it happened, later on the same night in which this discussion took place, the army
decided to take revenge for an earlier guerrilla attack against an isolated outpost in which four Israeli soldiers
had fallen. The reprisal was to demolish some sixty or seventy houses (the exact number was hotly disputed) at
the Palestinian refugee camp in Rafah, at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.
Shulamit Aloni, who happened to be visiting the besieged Arafat in Ramallah on the
following day, didn't hesitate and declared the demolition of houses to be a war crime when interviewed on Palestinian
TV. Cross-examined about it still the same day on Israeli TV (2nd Channel) she confirmed that she had called
it "war crime", and explained: 'I have said exactly the same yesterday in Tel-Aviv, in Tzavta.' The mass
reprisal which made hundreds of innocent refugees homeless again, with footage on international TV networks of
children searching the rubble for their toys, did provoke shocked protests worldwide. Even President Bush could
not keep silent, and some criticism was voiced from the White House.
Much of this may have been predicted by Sharon and the army leadership. What they probably
didn't foresee: that this time the protest inside Israel would not be limited to "the handful who refuse to
understand that their views are out of fashion."
The 150 demonstrators who turned up at very short notice outside the Ministry of Defence
in Tel-Aviv were just the beginning. There followed a wave of critical articles and editorials in the press and
sharp protests by prominent academics. The possibility that the action of the bulldozer drivers could be considered
a war crime, and the idea that every soldier was answerable for participating in such acts, suddenly became a public
issue.
Gush Shalom got a totally unexpected full week in the limelight because of having started
a very modest public discussion. In fact, there had been no TV cameras present at the discussion itself, only a
single radio reporter who recorded some of the speeches. Hearing those broadcast, Minister of Justice Sheetrit
declared that 'it is not our soldiers who should be brought to justice, but those who make such accusations against
them.' But the minister's assurances did not prevent that soon reports entered the press of career
Page 14
officers asking for judicial advice out of worry about the possibility of being arrested on their travels abroad
and being put on trial on war crime charges.
It was in this atmosphere that activists of different groups (ICAHD, Gush Shalom, Coalition
of Women for Peace, the Jewish-Arab Ta'ayush etc.) came together to see what could be done apart from collecting
blankets for the victims of the demolitions. Had it happened on the West Bank, it would have been possible to organize
a march by hundreds of activists demonstratively delivering blankets -- but the Gaza Strip is hermetically
closed for Israelis (other than settlers and soldiers) and the collected blankets could only be sent to Rafah indirectly.
Moreover, because of the government's promise to refrain in the future from further house demolitions, the specific
issue of the Rafah houses was already on its way out of the news.
The promise to cease destruction of Palestinian houses lasted for about a month. Following
the guerrilla attack on a settler convoy, Feb. 18, the army ordered the immediate demolition of 20 Palestinian
houses which supposedly 'provided cover to the attackers.'
After five of the houses were destroyed, the demolition was halted by a Supreme Court
injunction, in an appeal lodged by the inhabitants and Hadash Knesset Member Muhammad Barake.
Several weeks later, the judges ruled that the army must give Palestinians whose houses
are slated for demolition 48 hours to appeal, 'except in cases of immediate operational need.' The appellants'
lawyer Andre Rosenthal criticized the court for not forbidding demolitions. Gaza Strip settlers started a campaign
against 'the judges who preserve the terrorists' cover.'
Since then, the army destroys two or three houses in the immediate aftermath of a guerrilla
attack, calling it 'operational need', rather than order larger-scale demolitions. Meager as it may seem, it is
an improvement.
It was felt to be high time for a clearly visible protest against the occupation as such.
The only fitting action in the circumstances would be a mass Saturday night rally in Tel-Aviv. But that was considered
to be beyond the capacity of the smaller groups, something which only Peace Now may be able to do. When approached,
Peace Now did not reject the idea out of hand but was opposed to taking up the concept war crime. Meanwhile, the
cycle of violence continued, with many Israeli casualties, and after a week Peace Now backtracked.
On Jan. 23, I was personally involved in the sending of an email to thousands of addresses
in Israel and thousands more worldwide, with the header: "BIG DEMO -- help make it possible! (If
not Feb 2, when?)."
The decision had been taken to try, even without Peace Now participation, a "Peace
Now-style demo" -- with a podium, sound equipment, and ads in the paper. The money would be collected
from the participating groups but also from individuals.
The whole thing nearly collapsed when it turned out we had to postpone one week, because
of being late with asking for a police permit. Momentarily, the organizers were thrown into confusion and renewed
doubts. That we got through this was because an unexpectedly strong current of grassroots support was already manifesting
itself.
A continuous stream of pledges for funds -- and then, of actual checks
-- started filling the mailboxes. Among the contributions were some unusually big ones -- of
Israelis who wanted such a rally desperately and also from sympathizers abroad who were dying to see it reported
on their media. Also very encouraging was the round sum which was guaranteed by the Dutch group Een Ander Joods
Geluid (A Different Jewish Voice), even before they had collected it from their own members.
In this way we could pretty soon guarantee that money was not going to be an obstacle.
And this was more than solving our financial problem; it was an incentive to go ahead.
But there was more: on January 25 there appeared in the paper a declaration of 56 reserve
officers and soldiers, all of them from combat units, announcing that they were no longer willing to serve in the
Occupied Territories.
Through the years, there had been a constant trickle of reservists who joined the politically
outspoken Yesh Gvul. This refuser group had come into existence twenty years ago, when a group of reservists together
announced their refusal to serve the Lebanon War then raging. In the past months, Yesh Gvul had been very actively
informing soldiers that they had the right not to obey 'manifestly illegal orders.' But there had been no further
cases of a big number of hitherto obedient reservists or conscripts declaring refusal as a group.
With the sudden wave of refusers the war crime discussion acquired a new dimension.
The military authorities showed signs of panic with the rebellion from within the nucleus
of the army and threatened harsh punishment. The political establishment, including even several Meretz Knesset
members spoke out against the refusers. But opinion polls showed that 25% to 30% of the population identified with
them. And within a few weeks the number of new signatories of the controversial combat soldiers' letter (constantly
reported in the media) rose beyond 350.
The effect of the refusers' appearance on the demonstration was to definitely rule out
participation of Peace Now -- with which negotiations had restarted. Though many rank-and-file Peace
Now activists sympathized with the refusers, the movement's leaders as a whole would not hear about sharing a platform
with them -- whereas the initial organizers felt that the refusers deserved a central role.
For its part Peace Now, alarmed and/or encouraged by the determination of "the radical
groups" (altogether, 28 bigger and smaller organizations eventually joined the Feb. 9 event) decided upon
a separate campaign. The net result was that, after all, two mass demonstrations were held within eight
days of each other.
On February 9, the demonstration with the slogan 'The Occupation Kills All Of Us' counted
among the
Page 15
speakers apart from public figures such as Shulamit Aloni and Uri Avnery also several Arab personalities. Women
and Orientals were also better represented than ever, but centerpiece were the three representatives of refusers
organizations.
And the square of the Tel-Aviv Art Museum filled up above expectation on Saturday night
the 9th of February. Fourteen busses brought demonstrators from all over the country and the Tel-Avivians completed
it to about ten thousand. For the first time such a number was achieved with the clear message that the occupation
is the cause of all the trouble -- and that in a period that there were near daily instances of counter-violence
(see following report on the rallies).
When a week later Peace Now succeeded to get in the same place one and a half time that
number of demonstrators one thing had become clear to everybody: the peace camp has woken up.
****
And the square was full
The following account was compiled from several email reports, sent out by ourselves for Gush Shalom and from Gila
Svirsky for the Women's Peace Coalition.
The rally was a good one, and the square was full.
As the thousands started pouring into Museum Plaza -- a colorful medley of
printed and hand-made flags and signs and banners in Hebrew and Arabic and English -- the immense support
for the refusers was what struck the eye first. And there were prolonged cheers whenever a speaker mentioned the
refusers, and even more so when a refuser mounted the improvised podium set up on the steps of the Tel-Aviv Public
Library.
There were three of them among the twelve featured speakers: Yishai Rosen-Tzvi, fresh
from a term in military prison; Yishai Menuchin, a veteran refuser who was already imprisoned during the Lebanon
War twenty years ago; and Noa Levy, one of a group of high school kids who are determined to follow in these two's
footsteps upon reaching conscription age.
It was a large and heterogeneous crowd -- outspoken gays and lesbians from
cosmopolitan Tel-Aviv, side by side with villagers from rather conservative Arab communities. The home-made signs
of people who had not attended a demonstration for years reflected the new thinking -- 'Stop Sharon
before he kills us all: More conscientious objectors!', and all permutations of 'Share Jerusalem', 'Dismantle Settlements',
and 'Bring our soldiers home.'
The opening words were those of veteran peace activist Yehudit Harel, in fluent Hebrew
and Arabic:
'We, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, standing together, will no longer abide the crimes
that the government is perpetrating. There is only one flag held aloft here today: the black flag, the black flag
of pain, mourning, death, bereavement. The black flag of the manifestly illegal orders which are given to soldiers
in the occupied Territories.'
At her words, hundreds of black flags were aloft in the crowd, during a prolonged moment
of silence.
--------------
Following ad appeared in Ha'aretz on Feb. 8.
The occupation is killing us all!
The Sharon government is perpetrating terrible acts, acts on which the black flag of illegality
flies. Continuation of the occupation is drowning us in rivers of blood -- Israelis and Palestinians
alike.
Continuation of the occupation leads to loss of hope, to despair on both sides.
Stop the 'liquidations' which lead to suicide bombings! Stop the killing and bereavement!
Stop the closures and siege! Stop the uprooting of olive trees and orchards!
Stop the occupation!
Stop the silence! For those who keep silent at such a time are accomplices. Those who
do not raise their voice in protest bear part of the responsibility for the mutual destruction!
Protest rally tomorrow, Saturday night, February 9, 2002, at 7.00 PM, Museum Plaza, Tel-Aviv.
Association of Arab University Students * Baladna * Banki * Bat Shalom * Coalition of Women for a Just Peace *
Druse Initiative Committee * Du Siach * Gush Shalom * HaCampus Lo Shotek, Tel-Aviv University * Hadash Youth *
Committee Against House Demolitions * Kol Aher BaGalil * Kvisa Sh'hora: Lesbians and Gay Men Against the Occupation
* Left Forum, Haifa University * MachsomWatch * Meretz Youth * Monitoring Committee of the Arab Population * Neled
* Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salaam * New Profile * Noga * Tandi * Ta'ayush: Arab-Jewish Partnership * Tajamu Youth *
Wilpf * Women and Mothers for Peace * Women in Black * Yesh Gvul.
--------------
Except for that moment, there was a continuous chanting, sometimes rising to drown out
the speaker 'Fuad, Fuad Sar Habitachon -- Kama Yeladim Haragta Ad Hayom?'(Fuad [Ben Eliezer], Minister
of Defence, how many children did you kill unto this day?).
Catcalls and whistles greeted any mention of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, once the darling
of dovish crowds; Uri Avnery thundered 'Once we thought that there are war crimes perpetrated in the occupation
-- now we see that the occupation is a war crime!' Shulamit Aloni recited Nathan Alterman's poem denouncing
the killing of civilians by the army in 1948 -- a classic of modern Hebrew poetry -- adding
'If Alterman had written it today, Army Chief of Staff Mofaz would have started investigating him as a leftist
agitator.' Then came Yasser Arafat's greeting, sent out of besieged Ramallah: 'Only the peace of the brave will
ensure our children and yours a future without violence and bloodshed'; writer Sami Michael's observation: 'We
must all free ourselves of the occupation, the Palestinians from occupation by the army, we from occupation by
the angel of death'; Abed Anabtawi of the Arab Monitoring Committee: 'The occupation does not distinguish between
Jewish Blood and Arab blood; we all stand to be its victims, we all must fight it -- together!'; writer
Ronit Matalon: 'Sharon's train is taking us to total war and total
Page 16
destruction. We must derail it -- and the refusers' letter is a good start'; Jamal Zahalka: 'A specter
is haunting this country's political and military leadership -- the specter of soldiers' refusal, a
specter which refuses to be exorcised however much they try'; Yehuda Shenhav: 'The occupation is financed by our
tax money. The tanks, the helicopter gun ships, the bulldozers, the war crimes are all financed by out tax money.
This money should go elsewhere -- to the poor, to the disabled, to the creation of a just society!'
Cheering and wild clapping punctuated each and every daring remark.
Interspersed between speakers, famed singer Ahinoam Nini (known as "Noa" in
the US) took the risk of alienating her right-wing fans, and sang to the crowd a Hebrew, Arabic, and English version
of "Imagine" by the Beatles: 'You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one; I hope someday you'll
join us, and the world will be as one.'
Then followed a Haifa duo with an interesting transformation of the popular Hebrew song
'Ein Li Eretz Aheret.' Reciting this song in two languages, Hebrew and Arabic -- alternating languages,
line by line -- suddenly infused it with new meaning: 'I have no other country. Even when the land
burns under my feet, this is my home.' For the Arabs in the crowd, what has always been a Zionist song suddenly
became theirs, too.
None of the speakers had been officially designated keynote speaker. The one who may have
come closest to that description was Yishai Rosen-Tzvi -- not just because of rhetoric skill, but especially
due to the intense experience which was still fresh on his mind.
'I want to tell of how people come to take this act of refusal.
A soldier gets to the Territories and is confronted with a terrible situation: thousands
upon thousands of people sunk in deep misery, poverty, humiliation. And then you get your orders and find out what
your job is. Your job is to push these people deeper into misery and poverty and humiliation, to keep them caged
in towns and villages, not to let them get out, not to let them earn a living, not to let them live a normal life.
And then two things happen. First you look around in disbelief, you take your head into
your hands and ask: God, can this be true, is this really what I am supposed to do, how did I get here, how did
I come to get such orders, to be asked to do such things?
And the second thing which happens is that you cry out 'I've been cheated!' All the propaganda
arguments collapse -- that we are a peace-loving people, that the war was imposed on us, that we do
what we must in order to fight terrorism. Everything collapses, all these specious arguments, collapse like a house
of cards.
And then you are faced with the reality, the cruel reality. Fighting terrorism --
what a joke! They are maintaining a hothouse of misery and poverty and hopelessness, our army does, a hothouse
where the plants of terrorism have the ideal conditions for growth. It is the government policy which is keeping
the terrorism hothouse going and flourishing.
And the conclusion is very simple. There are things which a decent person just does not
do. A decent person does not starve people, and does not humiliate people, and does not treat people as if they
were dirt. A decent person JUST DOES NOT DO THAT. Not under any circumstance. And there are more decent people
in this country then we thought. And every day more people discover that they are decent, and start behaving as
decent people should. And when there are enough of them, then the occupation will just come to an end.'
****
..and even fuller
One week later -- the evening of Feb. 16.
Peace Now, while on the path of recovery from the crisis and major loss of grassroots
support which it suffered at the Intifada outbreak, is still not up to holding a rally at its traditional stamping
ground of the Rabin Square, where something on the order of 50,000 is a minimum requirement for a rally not to
look small and desolate. The Peace Now organizers hope to gather that much support by an ongoing campaign laid
out for several months. For the evening of Feb. 16, Rabin Square was to be no more than the starting off point
for a torchlight march, with the rally at its conclusion held again at the Museum Plaza.
The rally was preceded by delicate negotiations between organizers of the Feb. 9 rally
and the more mainstream Peace Coalition comprising Peace Now, the Meretz Party, the Kibbutz Movement, the group
of Labor Party doves headed by ex-minister Yossi Beilin and several smaller groups. As agreed in advance, "the
radicals" had their own distinctive contingent, with participants wearing black in the decades-long tradition
of the Women in Black and carrying signs with slogans upon which the Peace Now organizers could still agree, such
as 'The occupation turns us all into war criminals.'
Meanwhile, in the main body of the demonstration there were hundreds of printed red-black
signs with various variations on the main Peace Now slogan: 'Get Out of the Territories -- Get Back
to Ourselves'; 'Get out of the Territories -- Get Back to the Negotiations"; 'Get out of the Territories
-- Revive the Economy.'
Among the hand-painted signs there were many emphasizing the connection between peace
and social justice, and pointing to the occupation as the main obstacle to both; on the previous day, official
statistics showed a sharp increase in unemployment figures. Other personal placards were imaginative and sometimes
mischievous, like 'Looking for an Israeli cell mate -- signed, Slobodan Milosevic.'
Half an hour's marching, with torches flickering along the broad Ibn Gvirol Street, brought
the demonstrators to the Museum Plaza. The same space used by last week's demo was this evening more congested,
with a crowd estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 as compared with 10,000 on the earlier occasion.
While the first ranks were streaming into the plaza and approaching the podium, the Israeli
airwaves started quivering with news from the Karney Shomron, one of the largest Israeli settlements on the West
Bank: a Palestinian suicide bomber had just succeeded in eluding the military and security guards at the
Page 17
settlement's perimeter, entering its commercial center and blowing himself up at a pizzeria, killing two settler
teenage kids and wounding many others.
When word came to the rally organizers they immediately called for a minute of silence.
'We have come here to struggle for a political solution that will break this terrible cycle of violence' said the
first speaker, Yossi Sarid of Meretz, whose face filled enormous closed-circuit TV screens set up throughout the
plaza.
'Sharon has now brought Lebanon, the mud and blood of the Lebanon War, into the heart
of Israel. That's all the man knows. We, here at this plaza, we are the other Israel. Not the Israel of Sharon,
Ben-Eliezer and Mofaz. The Israel of democracy, not of a false national consensus. The Israel which wants to get
out of the occupation, out of the Territories, to return to negotiations, return to sanity. And to begin with,
the Labor Party must get out of this terrible government.'
This was directed partially at the other Yossi -- Yossi Beilin, leader of
the Labor doves and Sarid's rival for leadership of the mainstream peace camp.
Beilin's own speech was punctuated by heckling and calls ('Leave Labor!', 'What are you
still doing there!')
'As you know, I was opposed to Labor's entry into this government, and I am all the more
opposed to its staying there. I think there is a real chance to eventually pull the party out and create a far
stronger opposition bloc.
I don't accept the common wisdom that Sharon's successor, when he falls, will be Netanyahu.
Israeli society is divided down the middle into two big camps. Sharon and Netanyahu vie for the leadership of one
camp, but neither of them has any real solution to offer. Our camp does. With a proper leadership and a clear program,
our camp can and will gain power and implement what we in this plaza dream of.'
More attentively than to any speech by an Israeli speaker, the audience was listening
to the specially-arrived Palestinian speaker -- Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy at Bir
Zeit University and recently appointed by Arafat as PA Representative for Jerusalem Affairs. He gently apologized
in English for his bad Hebrew, and then proceeded in the language of his listeners.
The problems, he said, are no longer objective. They have become subjective. 'There
is no real doubt on either side about what the solution is, only about the will and determination to implement
it. The solution is two peoples, two states side by side, Jerusalem as the capital of both states, the Green Line
as the border with maybe some minor and mutual modifications.
The path to peace is through the return of the refugees to the State of Palestine and
the return of the settlers to the State of Israel. Israel has a partner for peace. Only one partner, only one person
empowered to speak for the Palestinian people, the legitimate, elected leader, President Yasser Arafat' (applause).
Nusseibeh and his bodyguards left early and received warm greetings when they made their
way through the crowd.
One speaker, KM Roman Bronfman, was really a revelation. Representing a dovish splinter
Russian immigrant party, "Democratic Choice", he tackled the prejudice that immigrants from the former
Soviet Union are uniformly nationalistic and rightward-leaning.
And he proved his point in a way definitely not foreseen by the organizers and also greatly
surprising the audience. 'There is very much talking recently about the refusers, the soldiers who can't stand
it any more. I would not presume to call upon soldiers to refuse, but I say that these people, these refusers,
they deserve support, they are the moving force of the growing anti- occupation movement.' The overwhelming ovation
which he got showed that also many of the "more moderate tribe" are impressed and moved by the upsurge
of refusal.
A few weeks later, KM Bronfman was shown to be an astute observer of grassroots tendencies
in his constituency. A poll conducted by Novosty Nidelly, one of the several Russian-language daily papers currently
published in Israel (and by no means a dovish publication), showed 21% of the Russian immigrants supporting refusal
to serve in the Occupied Territories, and a further 23% "opposed to refusal but considering it a legitimate
means of protest" (quoted in Ha'aretz, March 8).
****
The following three accounts by the TOI-staff were sent out over the Gush Shalom email network, a few hours after
the events described.
Five little flames
Tel-Aviv, Nov.27, 2001
An early evening hour at the drab parking lot opposite the Defence Ministry.
A simple piece of carton, on which five photos of children were pasted, photocopied and
enlarged from the previous day's Yediot Aharonot. Mourning candles lighted with difficulty against the prevailing
strong wind. Five hand-written first names: Sultan -- Muhammad -- Anis -- Amer
-- Akram. They all had the same family name, El-Astal, five boys whose fathers are brothers, all killed in
a single minute. Five children from Khan Yunes Refugee Camp blown up by an explosive device which Israeli army
sappers had set up at night. A booby-trap set up on a path which is used by Palestinian fighters but also by children
on their way to school.
As we were setting up the little makeshift shrine on the pavement, a security officer
came out of the huge compound across the street, the place where that fatal placing of explosive charges was reportedly
discussed and apprved along with dozens of other raids and stratagems. He was a young man, polite and courteous.
"Of course it is your right to register a protest. We just ask that you don't disturb public order or block
traffic on the road."
Were we wrong to give such assurances? Would it have been a more fitting response to the
gruesome event in Khan Yunes if some of us did block the traffic and got hauled off to a night in police detention
-- as activists did on the same spot a year ago, when news of killings and horrors had not yet become such
a terrible daily routine?
Page 18
The hundred people who had answered the call of Gush Shalom stood silently in a long line
behind the photos and flickering candles. 'Shame!' said the signs, and 'Five children dead -- who is
responsible?' and 'Impartial investigation Now!' and 'The Occupation kills Israeli and Palestinian children.' Some
people held aloft bigger candles, torches actually, lighting the fast darkening street. We were lucky with the
weather -- the pouring rain of the early afternoon did not come back.
'Why don't you mourn the Jewish children?' asked a passing motorist out of the open car
window. How can you answer that, while sounding neither angry and exasperated nor apologetic and defensive? How
to reiterate calmly and insistently, again and again, that a child is a child?
Gush Shalom, pb 3322, Tel-Aviv; www.gush-shalom.org
****
In spite of all, a jubilant mood
Dec. 31, 2001
While waiting in the yard of the Fr`res School near to the Old City's New Gate, Palestinians,
foreigners and Israelis were developing vivid mutual conversations. It was one of those pleasant, sunny December
days. The waiting was for the group from Bethlehem.
Already on the way from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem we had heard on the radio that the army
was preventing thousands of Palestinians from passing the roadblock on the way from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.
Gush Shalom had chartered a bus for the Tel-Avivians, and called upon the Jerusalemites,
to attend the 'Peace Circle' -- an action carefully planned by a Palestinian coalition including high-ranking
Muslim and Christian clerics and Members of the Palestinian Parliament, and to which Israeli peace activists were
specifically invited.
As we had known from the start, it wasn't very likely that the army would let thousands
of demonstrators walk from Bethlehem through the checkpoint, to join us in Jerusalem and hold hands together in
a Peace Circle around the Old City walls.
A joint action of this kind had not taken place for months. The months of violence and
counter-violence, revenge and revenge-upon-revenge, had created a new distance between the two peoples. With the
army not only barring Palestinians' way at roadblocks but also prohibiting Israelis from paying them solidarity
visits, almost the only ones still going between were the foreigners, of whom hundreds came especially, in the
month of December, to act as 'international monitors from below.'
In frantic mobile phone consultations it became clear that only the internationals and
a delegation of Palestinian VIP's would be able to pass the Bethlehem roadblock to join us. Two thousand Palestinians
whose way was blocked had started their midday prayers near the roadblock -- a form of protest and
also a wise way to diffuse tensions...
So, when we started marching through the many colourful alleys winding through the Old
City we were not thousands but hundreds, carrying the slogans 'Open Jerusalem' and 'Stop Occupation.' A French
cohort started chanting 'Free, Free, Free Palestine!' / 'Free, Free, Free Palestine!' and 'Stop, Stop, Stop Occupation!'
Our 'Shalom Ken, Kibush Lo' -- rather downtrodden for Israeli ears -- was immediately integrated.
(What does it mean? 'Peace Yes -- Occupation No!').
The merchants came out of their shops to look at this unusual parade. We went through
the Via Dolorosa, an unusual pilgrimage of believers and seculars from many nationalities. In the front row
Sari Nusseibeh, Father William Shomali and Uri Avnery linked hands.
Then we entered the beautiful open space behind St. Anne's Church and all the time more
people continued to stream in, among them the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabagh, Lutheran Bishop Munib
Younan and Anglican Bishop Riah Abu el-Asal, as well as Louisa Morgantini, the devoted member of the European Parliament
who brought with her 160 Italian voluntary peace keepers. (Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland,
who should have been there too, had decided to stay in Bethlehem as an act of solidarity with those who were not
allowed through the roadblock.)
For all who were present, the ceremony which ensued in that oasis, in the middle of this
most contested place the Old City of Jerusalem, was a unique experience.
The two-thousand year old Sermon on the Mount, which was read in Arabic and English, turned
out to be well applicable to the present situation. Then the very moving 'Prayer against bitterness' written ten
years ago by the late Faysal Al-Husseini was read in Arabic by Sari Nusseibeh, in a voice deep with restrained
emotion, and in English by Fadwa Husseini -- Faysal's daughter (see p.19).
Michel Sabagh, the Latin Patriarch called for recognizing that occupation is the root
cause of hatred and bloodshed:
'There can be no peace and security for Israelis without peace and security for Palestinians;
there can be no peace on destroyed homes; there can be no peace with assassinations. But, we Palestinians will
also not have peace if we take retribution of the same kind. As Mahatma Gandhi said, surrendering to evil is losing
one's humanity -- but resisting evil with evil methods is even worse.'
Then came Uri Avnery:
'You Palestinians are undergoing terrible times of increasing oppression. We think of
you and feel with you day and night. In these times of bloodshed it is easy to despair, but we must not lose hope.
Peace is not made by politicians. Peace is not made by the men of war, but by the people who seek it. We have come
here as the true Israeli patriots, carriers of the Jewish tradition which says: 'Justice, justice shalt thou pursue',
and 'Seek peace and pursue it.' In the end the two peoples shall win, the two peoples shall live together in peace.
There is no other way. The day will come, and may come sooner than you think, when we gather again at this church
which will then be in East Jerusalem, capital of Palestine.'
After these words the music started -- interrupted
Page 19
for a few words in Arabic delivered by the Iraqi-born Meretz activist Latif Dori, as well as the Jewish
Saturday prayer 'Shalom Aleichem Malachey Hashalom' (Peace unto you, Angels of Peace) whose melody was perfectly
captured by Reuven Moskovitz on his mouth organ.
Then again the church orchestra, and everybody had gotten into such a jubilant mood of
reconciliation that people started spontaneously dancing in big circles, men and women, clerics and activists,
young and old. And it was no shame to dance and be united in love and happiness. For a moment we had overcome reality.
We went home as stronger people.
Translation of the prayer of Faysal Al-Husseini as distributed during the Peace Circle event:
Oh God, the chest is replete with bitterness... do not turn that into spite.
Oh God, the heart is replete with pain... do not turn that into vengeance.
Oh God, the spirit is replete with fear... do not turn that into hatred.
Oh God, my body is weak... do not turn my weakness into despair.
Oh God, I your servant am holding the embers... so help me maintain my steadfastness.
Oh God, faith is love...
Oh God, faith is forgiveness...
Oh God, faith is conviction...
Oh God, do not put of the flame of faith from my chest.
Oh God, we wanted for the Intifada to be a white one, so please protect it.
Oh God, we wanted freedom for our people, we did not want slavery to others.
Oh God, we wanted a homeland for our people to gather them, we did not want to destroy states of others, nor demolish
their homes.
Oh God, our people are stripped of all things, except their belief in their right.
Oh God, our people are weak except in their faith in their victory.
Oh God, grant us conviction, mercy and tolerance in our ranks, and not make us war against ourselves.
Oh God, turn the blood that was shed into light that will guide us and strengthen our arms, do not let it turn
into fuel of hatred and vengeance.
Oh God, help us over our enemy so that we can help him deal with himself.
Oh God, this is my prayer to you... my invocation, so listen to it and grant us our supplication and guide us to
the right path.
****
Marching through empty Jerusalem
Jerusalem, March 2
As it happened, we heard tonight's explosion. It happened just as a crowd was gathering
at Tzion Square in downtown Jerusalem, in preparation for the protest march called by Peace Now. From a distance
of some two kilometres it seemed no more than a dull thud, this fatal moment in which nine lives were snuffed out
-- but the immediate appearance of ambulances and police cars in high gear, with sirens blazing, told that
something serious had happened.
The police tried to pressure the Peace Now organizers to call off the march.
After some initial hesitation it was, however, decided to go ahead with it. If anything,
the message had only become more meaningful.
By 7.45, we were all picking up memorial candles and prepared black-bordered signs reading
:'We mourn the death of 1114 Israelis and Palestinians, Sharon's idea of peace and sec |