Daniel Pipes’ Acrimonious Remarks Embarrass Organizers of Portland Panel on “Healing Words”

By Elaine Kelley

A panel discussion entitled “Healing Words: Crisis in the Holy Land” turned unexpectedly from a dialogue into a pro-Israel solidarity rally led by American Zionist writer/intellectual Daniel Pipes. Pipes, director of the Israel-aligned think tank Middle East Forum and current editor of its pro-Israel Middle East Quarterly, is a key player in foreign policy planning in Washington, DC.

The April 19 event, sponsored by the Lewis and Clark College Pamplin Society of Fellows’ Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program and held in the campus chapel, drew supporters of both Palestinians and Israel, local members of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Christian peacemaking group Sabeel—headed by panel participant Canon Naim Ateek—students and others. A third panelist, Jon Mandaville, professor of Middle East history at Portland State University and director of its Middle East Studies Center, was a last-minute replacement for Hatem Bazian of the University of California at Berkeley, who had to cancel because of a death in his family.

Sabeel director Ateek, who has written and spoken extensively on justice and peace issues and on reconciliation with Israel, opened the program, setting the tone of the panel’s topic of healing. “Healing words reflect a positive approach to the crisis,” he said, noting that the Palestinians are “desperate to move forward toward a genuine resolution of the conflict and beyond that toward healing and reconciliation.”

Canon Ateek explained that the ongoing crisis in the Holy Land has been researched extensively by both Palestinian and Israeli scholars, as well as by many international ones, with the result that the injustice done against Palestinians is “as documented and substantiated today as the injustice done against the Jews in the Holocaust.”

He reiterated Sabeel’s “seven points essential to peacemaking,” which include an admission by Israel of injustice against the Palestinians and an acceptance of the right of Palestinians to 23 percent of British Mandate Palestine, leaving Israel with 77 percent [see the Jan./Feb. 2001 Washington Report, pp. 54-55]. Commenting on Israel’s offer at Camp David of 95 percent of the West Bank, which “most people thought the Palestinians should have joyfully accepted,” he explained that Palestinians were wise in refusing. Canon Ateek cited the words of Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper, who wrote, “The 5 to12 percent of the West Bank that Israel insists on retaining is diffused in a way that it constitutes a Matrix of Control…they absolutely nullify the sovereignty and viability of any Palestinian state.”

“The only way forward is by sharing the country,” Ateek insisted—including the contested city of Jerusalem. “Once the principle of sharing is wholeheartedly accepted it will constitute healing words,” he said, noting that when a treaty finally is achieved between Israel and the Palestinians, “We must have a commission similar to that of South Africa for Truth and Reconciliation.”

Following Ateek, fellow panelist Mandaville began by stating that, although he is a historian and knowledgeable of both the histories of Jews and Palestinians, he would “focus on what might actually bring peace.”

“I have only one point to make,” he said. “We will in fact have no peace unless the majority share land as equals.”

Mandaville warned that unless the Israeli government is willing to dismantle one small settlement at a time and the Palestinians are willing to silence the mortars and stones little by little, “we will have ongoing war.” The problem will not go away, he emphasized, noting that “the Palestinians are not going to leave.” Warning that “the next war is going to involve everyone,” he concluded, “It’s absolutely predictable. It will include us as well, and all will suffer.”

“I have a message that is somewhat different,” began Pipes, the final speaker on the panel. He noted that both of the previous speakers agreed that sharing is essential and that both sides must listen to the other. “Ateek has a hateful passion,” Pipes then declared. He proceeded to blame a constant and “unpleasant spirit” among Palestinians, their “hateful speeches in schoolbooks and poetry,” for the violence that erupted in September 2000. He was referring to Palestinians protesting Ariel Sharon’s belligerent march onto the Muslim holy site Haram al-Sharif Sept. 28 with 1,000 armed Israeli police, an action that has been widely condemned around the world. Pipes argued that Palestinians are obsessed with destroying Israel, that they must deal with their hatred. “It is time to get over this,” he said. “Only then will Palestinians move on.”

Pipes is well-known for his hawkish views and inflammatory statements. And with a Ph.D. from Harvard in the history of the Middle East, Pipes speaks and writes extensively and harshly on the history of Islam and its role in politics. He recently angered Middle East peace advocates in his April 25 National Post commentary “Being nice won’t help Israel,” in which he asserts that Israel must “convince Palestinians not of its niceness but its toughness,” arguing that the more flexibly Israel behaved, the more “Palestinians smelled blood and became enraged at the very existence of the Jewish state.”

Early in his comments Pipes had remarked, “It is deeply unfortunate that Ateek compares the Germans’ treatment of the Jews to Israel and the Palestinians.” Using innuendo, Pipes compared the final fate of the Germans after WWII with what Palestinians may have to succumb to in the future: “When the Germans lost World War I they came out with a sense of grievance and felt stabbed in the back; but when they were thoroughly destroyed in World War II they came out of that with something modern and new. It’s time for Arabs to move on.”

What Israel should do, he added, is “respond with force. Punish those that would hurt [Israel], and their ambitions to do so will fail.” Asserting that “Arab people live in some of the worse conditions in the world, without freedom to travel or modern media,” he blamed those conditions on the Arabs’ “political obsession with Israel.”

“The Palestinians are a miserable people,” he added, “and they deserve to be.”

At the conclusion of his talk, Pipes received a standing ovation from a large group in the audience. The Palestinians present and others in the audience were clearly disturbed by Pipes’ statements and their endorsement by applause from some members of the audience. Only written questions from members of the audience were allowed, and were read by the panel moderator.

According toThe Pamplin Society of Fellows, an honor society at Lewis and Clark College, panel participants were chosen based on the recommendations of their student members, consisting of seven each from the sophomore, junior, and senior classes. Students do their own research, consult with faculty and have the final say on whom to bring for such events. Richard Rohrbaugh, department chair of Christian Studies at Lewis and Clark, who arranged for Naim Ateek to participate in the panel, explained that the event was student planned and organized, with the help of a staff member. According to Rohrbaugh, the students approached the college’s International Affairs department to ask for a recommendation for a speaker representing the Jewish/Israeli side. “I don’t know who recommended Pipes,” said Rohrbaugh. He added that there was disagreement over the choice and that “older members of the International Affairs department refused [to accept Pipes].

Naim Ateek’s visit to Portland also included a fund-raising dinner for Sabeel organized by Rev. Dick Toll of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, coordinator of Sabeel in Oregon.

“Unholy Jerusalem” Teach-In

Many were invited, including local leaders of the Jewish community, but a small group of Palestinians, their supporters, and students attended the April 26 teach-in sponsored by the Muslim Education Trust of Oregon and the Portland Campus Christian Ministry of Portland State University and held at Campus Ministry’s Koinonia House. The event was slated as an interfaith event with Rev. Dick Toll, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, and Jan Abushakrah, professor of sociology at Portland Community College and for 12 years the director of a Palestinian human rights organization in Jerusalem.

Rev. Dick Toll, a longtime friend of Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, spoke on his February trip to the Holy Land to attend Sabeel’s 4th International Conference entitled “Speaking Truth, Seeking Justice” held Feb. 21 through 24 at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.

Toll said that as a boy in Texas he was raised “on the Exodus story,” and that at that time “everyone supported Israel.” In 1966 Toll went to a seminary in Berkeley where he met fellow seminarian Naim Ateek, who shared his own story about being a Palestinian. Ateek told Dick Toll that the Palestinians felt abandoned by the world Christian community, but Toll recalled that at the time he was “too concerned about Vietnam.”

“I completely turned the corner in 1981,” he continued, when he went on a two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a Palestinian guide. Since then Toll has taken seven trips to the Episcopal “Anglican” cathedral, St. George’s in Jerusalem, and eventually took a six-week sabbatical there, where he became more acquainted with his friend Naim. For the past nine years Rev. Dick Toll has worked on setting up Sabeel, an international ecumenical organization working for justice and peace.

There were 350 people from 19 different countries at Sabeel’s 2001 conference, he said, with 107 from the U.S. The conference featured tours in Ramallah and Al-Bireh, local and international speakers, a Solidarity Rally in Ramallah, a Justice March in Bethlehem, post-assembly tours to Galilee and Gaza, A Day for Analysis to develop plans for strategy and advocacy in participants’ home countries, and a Closing Worship Service.

Ten scheduled lecturers included Fr. Rafiq Khoury, a Palestinian priest responsible for religious studies in the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, whose subject was “Speaking Truth”; a video presentation by Ambassador Clovis Maksoud, professor of international relations and director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, DC, and Dr. Roger Heacock, director of Birzeit University’s Graduate Institute of International Studies, on “The Current Uprising: A Call to the World’s Peoples in the Era of Globalization”; Jim Wallis, author, preacher, activist, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, speaking on “Tools for Advocacy”; Knesset member Azmi Bishara and political columnist Farid Esack speaking on “Countering Apartheid”; and Sabeel director Ateek, speaking on “The Zionist Ideology of Domination vs. The Reign of God.”

Reverend Toll told the audience that eight busloads of people set out from Notre Dame for the Solidarity Rally in Ramallah. All the buses were stopped by Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint entering Ramallah. The soldiers held the entire group for two hours, saying the buses could not cross the border because they had Palestinian drivers. After finally being allowed to cross, they met the mayor of Ramallah and walked peacefully through the streets in the center of Ramallah.

The following day the group left Jerusalem to participate in the Justice March in Bethlehem. Again they were stopped at the checkpoint at the entrance to Bethlehem. “It was the day of Colin Powell’s visit,” Toll said. “There was a group of Israelis, about 100, 16 police cars, and 40 of us.”

Toll’s group joined the Israelis, who were there stopping traffic to protest the occupation. After three hours at the Bethlehem checkpoint, where soldiers had confiscated the ID of one of the Sabeel participants, the group was allowed to enter Bethlehem, where they visited the Church of the Nativity, which “had only three visitors when we were there,” Toll stated.

“I’m always interested to hear about people’s trips to Palestine,” began Jan Abushakra. “Once you’ve been there, even if you don’t go back, you feel connected to what’s going on.”

Abushakra discussed the economic situation on the West Bank and Gaza, and Israeli attacks only heard about from what she described as “alternative news sources.” She cited a news report from the Palestine Media Center on “Displacing Refugees and Creating New Ones: Israel’s Strategy,” which describes an April 11 attack by military tanks and bulldozers in Khan Younis that injured more than 40 civilians, killed two, and displaced more than 500 refugees from the refugee camp created in 1948. Another attack occurred on April 12, when Israeli tanks and bulldozers leveled 10 homes in Rafah, displacing 200 refugees, killing two and injuring many. “These two operations were carried out under Operation Enjoyable Psalm,” Abushakra said.

She described another attack on Gaza on April 18, when Israel conducted a comprehensive offensive on land and sea, with 200 missiles, resulting in four killed and 40 injured. “In the space of a week this is the kind of thing happening to these people,” she added.

Abushakra explained that Israel’s policy on which it was founded 53 years ago continues today, and that people who want to defend Palestinian rights should organize to discuss options and strategize. “If they don’t,” she concluded, “Hope will die.”

Elaine Kelley is a Palestinian human rights activist in Oregon working since 1990 in local churches to educate Christians about the Holy Land and its peoples. She lived in the Bethlehem area for four years doing development work for Palestinian NGOs and as development officer at Bethlehem University.