Waging Peace

Naim Ateek Calls for “Justice With Mercy” for Palestine

Standing-room-only audiences of Christians, Muslims and Jews met for the first time ever July 10 at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham, Alabama to hear Dr. Naim Ateek, president-founder of the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Theology Center, state that Palestinians are willing to accept a peace based not “on absolute justice, but justice with mercy.” He explained that justice with mercy minimally means that Israel must “get out of the West Bank and Gaza,” even though the state of Palestine, which would then be created, would not occupy all the land originally assigned to it by the United Nations in 1947.

In answer to the continuously circulating charge that the Arab world’s aim is to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel, the Anglican theologian/nonviolent peace activist countered by asserting that “contrary to what you have heard, we want to live in peace...To destroy Israel would be creating an injustice, although creating Israel was a great injustice.”

In a talk the next day to a noontime audience at the Cathedral, Ateek reiterated, “We are not saying that Israel must come to an end. But we are saying that the occupation must come to an end.”

He drew sustained applause when he specifically emphasized that ending the occupation means that Israel must “get out of the settlements.” The settlements, currently housing more than 400,000 Israelis, he suggested, could be used to resettle many Palestinians who were forced to flee even before the creation of Israel in 1947, and again after the 1967 war.

Reverend Dr. Ateek’s assertions were in dramatic contrast to a commentary published two days earlier in the state’s largest newspaper, the Birmingham News, which had been disturbing many in the audience. Written by Richard Friedman, the executive vice president of the local Jewish Welfare Federation, it argued that the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) massive retaliation to the current uprising in the occupied territories was a legitimate case of “do it to them, before they do it to us...I think the job of Americans who care about Israel and who support a strong, mutually beneficial U. S.-Israel relationship,” Friedman added, “ is not to say what Israel should or shouldn’t do.”

But Ateek, who says his calling is to speak prophetically rather than politically, acknowledged that “peace will only be made in Washington, DC....[and that won’t happen until the U.S. understands that if there] is no justice, there can be no peace.”

The heavily promoted visit to Birmingham of the internationally known author of Justice, and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation drew its audience from as far away as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the northern Alabama cities of Huntsville and Gadsden.

Ateek’s two days of public talks and private meetings were coordinated by the North Central Alabama Episcopal Peace Fellowship in partnership with a rainbow of area interfaith and intercultural organizations: the Birmingham Human Rights Group, the Birmingham Muslim Community, the Muslim Students Association, (University of Alabama at Birmingham Chapter), Mary’s House Catholic Worker, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Gulf States Committee, and Pax Christi Birmingham. The Advent Cathedral hosted two public presentations on July 10 and 11, as well as a reception. In addition, the Birmingham Muslim Community hosted another speaking opportunity at a breakfast in his honor at a local restaurant.

Although Ateek insisted that international law acknowledges the right of people under occupation to resist by any means, he warned his listeners that the sides are farther apart than ever because of the unprecedented turn to violence by both Israel and Palestine. Hate is on the increase, he said, because neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian leadership is able to contain the tendency to eliminate all direct action except violence.

Reverend Ateek also met with the editorial boards of Birmingham’s two daily newspapers, the Birmingham News and the Birmingham Post Herald. In discussions with editors at the News he offered his vision of a Jerusalem that would be an open city that could be the capital of both Palestine and Israel. The areas occupied by each, he explained, would be administered by Jewish and Palestinian municipal councils.

The Birmingham News followed up with a July 12 story on Ateek, and also published three letters to the editor which were critical of the Friedman commentary. The News is notorious in Alabama peace and justice circles for its heavily pro-Israel editorial leanings. So the article and three letters constituted an extremely rare editorial break for Palestine and nonviolence in Birmingham.

Naim Ateek’s visit to Birmingham was also used as a catalyst for a small unpublicized meeting of area Muslims, Christians and pro-justice for Palestine Jews who at the end agreed to build on the initial contact and dialogue.

Reverend Ateek was moved by his reception in Birmingham and to know that his visit had sparked the largest gathering in city history of all “the people of the book” (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) on behalf of ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. He confessed privately that he had never expected to be able to state Palestine’s case publicly in Birmingham, but having experienced the enthusiasm with which he was received, he hoped it would not be the last opportunity there.

—Jerry Levin

Prayer Vigil for Peace in the Middle East

Following a July 22 ecumenical prayer vigil for peace in the Middle East at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Chevy Chase, MD, a delegation from the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) shared stark facts from a recent trip to the Holy Land. Monsignor Thomas Duffy, pastor of the Catholic church, and the National Cathedral’s Rev. Roy Enquist led the vigil.

The service was the seventh such monthly gathering in the national capital area. Each month, ecumenical prayer vigils are held across the United States in support of Jerusalem’s Christian communities and all those—Palestinians and Israelis—who are suffering in the Holy Land.

Vigils for peace in the Middle East are organized by state, with each observing the same date each month—and some sharing the same day. The vigils began in Alabama and New York on Dec. 3, 2000, the first Sunday in Advent, rotated to Alaska and North Carolina on Dec. 4, to Arizona and North Dakota on Dec. 5, and so on. They will continue until the violence in the Middle East ends and all people can celebrate a just and lasting negotiated resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Check the very informative Churches for Middle East Peace Web site: <http://www.cmep.org/> for more information on Christian activism. That site links to <www.loga.org>, which gives the designated day of the month and prayer vigil locations for each state. Congregations or communities are encouraged to organize special prayer services or ecumenical events that focus on peace in the Middle East on the day of the month assigned to their state.

—Delinda C. Hanley

HCEF’s Hajj During the Siege

After the prayer vigil, Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation members spoke in the annex of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Chevy Chase, MD. An ecumenical delegation of Americans visited Palestine and Jordanfrom May 16 to June 1, 2001 with a two-fold mission, according to Donald Kruse, a retired U.S. State Department officer. The mission was intended to show American Christian support to beleaguered residents of the Holy Land and report back their findings to churches in the United States. Kruse introduced Duane Burchick, Sr., KHS, who, along with his wife, Lorie, took what he called a “Hajj during the siege.”

As the Burchicks, Kruse, HCEF president Rateb Rabie, Dr. Robert Younes, and others took photographs (many of which accompanied the talk) and distributed financial aid, Burchick said they asked Palestinians what they wished to tell Americans.

“We met with Chairman Arafat,” he said, “and what I saw was an old man with shaking hands who talked of his sorrows. He’s not like the media portrays him. He quietly asked us what we had seen. Then he said, ‘Go back to your churches and tell them what you found.’”

Prince Hassan of Jordan told the group that Christians are the spark plugs of the economy, culture and education in Jordan and Palestine. The prince also called Christians the natural bridge between the Middle East and the West.

In visits to Bethlehem, Birzeit, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, Burchick said, the group found the towns and villages in the middle of economic warfare. Israel was strangling the local economy in hopes that Palestinians would emigrate. In the midst of a six-month drought, he said, Israel has cut off water all but two days a week, randomly cut off electricity, leveled hundreds and thousands of trees with bulldozers, and made traveling from one canton to the next all but impossible. Since most Christians have relatives in the U.S., he noted, Israel hopes that Palestinians will just give up and leave.

Burchick was astonished by the weaponry Israel uses on defenseless civilians. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) routinely uses bulldozers as instruments of war. They can form a mountain of dead trees in a day.

He also described a horrifying Israeli military bunker in the middle of Beit Sahour, or Shepherd’s Field, where the angels announced the birth of Jesus. It feels like a sacrilege, Burchick said. Israeli tanks come out of the bunker, choose a house and destroy it. Residents have no idea when the tanks will turn to target their home. The IDF may “respond” to one gunman two kilometers away from the Jewish settlement of Gilo with massive gunfire.

“Trees are almost sacred in the Holy Land,” Burchick reminded the audience. “They don’t make houses out of wood. The tanks’ armor-piercing rounds sear through limestone walls....in one house, baby shoes were all that was left....More than 300 homes have been destroyed.

“How would we have reacted if an American community had come under enemy fire every night for all these months?” Burchick asked the audience. We would have responded far more violently than the Arabs have, he suggested.

Someone asked, “Who provides these weapons, these armor-piercing rounds?”

I think we all know, Burchick replied.

Burchick said his Native American Indian wife, Lorie, sees a striking similarity between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and American treatment of Indians. Warriors protecting their people were called savages, just as Israelis call Palestinians terrorists. One makes up bad names for people one wants to destroy.

Discussing Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, Burchick said, “…I’m not talking about families with bonnets and covered wagons like we think of when we say ‘settlers.’ These are more like military battalions who seize a mountain, do some rapid construction, build a bypass road for Jews only and leave ‘axle-grinding’ roads for Arabs.”

Burchick ended with a deeply disturbing story that flies in the face of the Israeli propaganda that Palestinian parents put their children in harm’s way. He began by stating, “Palestine is full of heroes who daily save children from gunfire.”

In Beit Sahour Burchick watched an Israeli tank roll out and target one part of town. Palestinian police rushed to evacuate the area. Pandemonium broke out as Burchick and his Palestinian friend Maher rushed to pick up Maher’s four-year-old son from school. The child silently crouched in a fetal position on the front seat of the car as they drove. When they got home he wouldn’t leave the car. Burchick just had to take a photo to show Americans what is happening to a generation of Palestinian children. His father had to carry his child, still in a terrified ball, into their home.

Then the Israeli tank rolled to face another direction. People rushed to evacuate the new area. The IDF tank moved again, and again, for two and a half hours. “It’s like Chinese drip water torture,” Burchick said. The tanks finally emptied their guns and returned to their bunkers for the night. That evening a family with four or five children had 50-caliber machine guns emptied into their home. “There is some form of chivalry in the American military,” Burchick said. “What kind of a military man can look at a sleepy village and open fire?”

Burdick concluded, “No one will help the Palestinians if you do not.” He volunteered to tell the Palestinians’ story at any church in the nation if people invite him. For more information contact the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, P.O. Box 6687, Silver Spring, MD 20906, phone (301) 871-9222, fax (301) 871-2277, e-mail <anews@hcef.org>, Web site <http:///www.hcef.org>.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Colin Powell Speaks to Seeds of Peace Campers

Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed 160 graduates of the Seeds of Peace International Camp for Conflict Resolution on Aug. 14 at the U.S. Department of State. Founded in 1993, the Seeds of Peace program focuses on Israeli and Arab teenagers from 10 nations in the Middle East. It also has brought to its unique coexistence program in Maine youngsters from Cyprus, the war-torn Balkans and other regions of conflict. By bringing together youngsters who see each other as “the enemy” and nurturing lasting relations between them, the program hopes they will become the seeds from which an enduring peace will grow. After completing a three-and-a-half-week summer camp, the 13- to 17-year-old campers had spent the day in Washington, DC visiting the Holocaust Museum, and were on their way home.

As Powell entered the auditorium he was greeted by green-T-shirted campers linking arms and swaying as they sang their moving “Seeds of Peace” song. Award-winning author and journalist John Wallach, founder and president of Seeds of Peace, spoke to the graduates and to the invited diplomats and journalists in the audience. Wallach praised the campers for learning co-existence skills after sharing tents, meals, fun and classes with their former enemies. The youngsters had learned how to disagree but still like each other and, most of all, how to make peace with each other.

The secretary of state pulled his chair around to face the podium and give his full attention to the words of each young Seed. Palestinian Arab-Israeli Nardeen Sbait, from Haifa, told Powell about hearing the news of the Jerusalem suicide bombing of the pizza restaurant and of Palestinian and Israeli campers grieving together, without blaming each other. “Friendship comes first,” she said. “We are all equal as human beings, Arabs and Israelis.”

Idan Spund, a 17-year-old Jewish Israeli, also from Haifa, said both sides share the same dream—the dream of peace.

Another 17-year-old, Fadi Elsalameen from Hebron, said he felt selfish leaving his war-torn city and visiting the ideal world the camp has built in Maine. “Seeds of Peace is the only place Palestinians and Israelis treat each other as human beings,” he said. “At home there is nothing to talk about but death, Ariel Sharon and war,” he complained.

Fadi told Powell he’d lost four friends, including one from Seeds of Peace. [Asel Asleh, 17, was the first Seeds of Peace graduate to be killed in the intifada. In August the Or Commission investigating the Oct. 2, 2000 killing of 13 Palestinian Israelis in Israel properheard from eyewitnesses who testified that Israeli commanding police officer Yitzhak Shimoni chased Asel, hit him on the head from behind with his rifle butt and shot him during clashes in Arrabe on Oct. 2, 2000. The tragic loss of this sensitive, caring and articulate individual still hurts his Arab and Israeli friends in the Seeds of Peace family.] Fadi gave Secretary Powell a grave look and asked him to please help end the cycle of violence and dehumanization both sides are experiencing.

Wallach introduced the keynote speaker by saying that Powell, who has led America’s Promise (a group for American youth, especially the underprivileged), cares about young people more than any other person who has occupied the office of secretary of state.

Powell praised Seeds of Peace leaders and campers, saying, “With what is happening in the Middle East today, your message of peace and reconciliation is even more important than ever.”

Peace is possible, Powell continued, if people can break down the barriers of hatred and distrust. He has first-hand evidence that can happen, he said. After spending most of his life as a soldier trained to destroy enemy nations, Powell has spent recent years forging agreements and relationships with those same nations. The previous day, he pointed out, an agreement had been signed in Macedonia, which shows that people should never give up hope, and that promise can arise from chaos.

In answer to Fadi’s plea for American help, Powell said, “We are deeply engaged. We are finding bridges to cross the divide. America is working with both sides and the international community to find a way for two peoples to share this land. I will never give up the quest to find a peaceful solution, for I’ve seen what war can do. I am deeply committed to young people and the future you need. President [George W.] Bush and I are committed to that future.”

In response to Palestinian Fahid Daoud’s question, “Isn’t it about time for Palestinians to get their independence?” Powell replied that both sides need to stop the violence and get back to negotiations, never losing sight of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338.

Jamal, also from Palestine, asked why the U.S. vetoed resolutions calling for international observers in the region, and also why Washington did not object to Israel’s use of U.S.-made weapons like F-16s, tanks, heavy arms and nerve gas on civilians. Powell said he was not aware of any use of nerve gas and that both sides must agree to monitors or observers. The U.S. is willing to play a role and continue to work with both sides to bridge their differences, he concluded.

Dr. Aaron David Miller, a senior State Department adviser who had just returned from the region, said the gaps between the Israeli and Palestinian people are huge. Neither side understands the other, but each wants something better for themselves and their children. The greatest casualty of this intifada, Miller said, even more than the loss of lives, is the loss of hope. Without hope there is no trust, confidence and willingness to try, he told the audience.

As Seeds of Peace campers returned home, Miller couldn’t resist giving them some advice—although he admitted that, because they are teenagers, they probably would not take it. He counseled them to rely on themselves, their own instincts and on what they’d learned in camp. They should also rely on each other, he said, because seeds grow together. “Use the 21st century tools to overcome the distances between you—the Internet, phones, if you can,” he advised. [Israel had captured the telecommunications offices in EastJerusalem the previous day.] “Finally, never ever lose hope and never, never give up.”

After Lindsay Miller described Seeds of Peace camp achievements whichincluded an India-Pakistan program inanother 2001 session,vice president and camp director Tim Wilson had a final word. Every year he gets a tremendous response from campers—they usually give him a standing ovation at their annual State Department ceremony. It’s easy to see Wilson means a lot to each Seed for, after each young person speaks to the audience, he or she often seeks him out first for a special hug or gentle word of praise.

“Stay in touch with each other. You all have done a good job,” Wilson told the misty-eyed young people. “Each time I send you home I worry about you. I can’t change the world where you live. And this year it’s the hardest world ever. But as I always say,” he concluded, “‘you take care of the square where you live. Make it a better place.’”

—Delinda C. Hanley

Dennis Kux Launches Latest Book: The United States and Pakistan: Disenchanted Allies

On June 26, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a book launch for Dennis Kux, a retired State Department South Asia specialist who served in Pakistan from 1957-59 and 1969-71. In his new book, a study of the volatile relationship between the United States and Pakistan, Kux, currently a senior scholar at the Center, has followed up on his previous acclaimed work, India and the United States: Estranged Democracies. The new book, The United States and Pakistan: Disenchanted Allies is a comprehensive account of the two countries’ diplomatic relations since 1947, and relies heavily on primary documentary sources and interviews.

“Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. is like the stock market,” said Kux at the book event. “There have been about seven highs and lows [since 1947].”

In the next hour, he succinctly traced the path of this association, beginning with 1947, when “the U.S. government wished it [Pakistan] well, but did not see a major interest in the subcontinent.” Kux described growing U.S. interest in Pakistan as President Dwight Eisenhower realized it could be part of the containment belt against Communism. Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, found Pakistanis to be “first-rate” and “great fighters,” at the same time viewing India’s Prime Minister JawaharlalNehru as “impractical.” Several crucial security agreements followed.

Kux went on to detail President John F. Kennedy’s political machinations and unfulfilled security promises in Asia, and their negative impact on Pakistan-U.S. relations. Under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, the two countries hit a diplomatic low, not least due to Pakistan’s close friendship with China. However, when Richard M. Nixon came into power, he chose to court rather than reject the Chinese, and Pakistan was seen as instrumental in this strategy. A tilt occurred in Pakistan’s favor, which continued until the election of President Jimmy Carter.

Carter took a hard line, noted Kux, and Pakistan was twice sanctioned under the military dictatorship of Gen. Zia ul-Haq for failing to meet U.S. human rights, democratic and non-proliferation standards.

All was forgotten, however, on the day the Red Army moved into Kabul, Afghanistan in 1979. In the late Carter and Reagan eras, aid to Pakistan skyrocketed. Republicans assured General Zia that nuclear issues “need not be the centerpiece of our relationship,” as they turned a blind eye to the Pakistani nuclear program. Pakistan was lauded as a bulwark against Communism and, by the late 1980s, up to $300 million and countless weapons were pumped into Pakistan and the Afghani resistance.

In 1985, however, the non-proliferation camp managed to get President Ronald Reagan to approve the Pressler Amendment, which threatened to cut aid to Pakistan if it continued with its nuclear program. Then, said Kux, “to everyone’s surprise” Gorbachev pulled out of Afghanistan in 1987.

General Zia realized that the Mujahideen were not strong enough to topple the Najibullah government in Afghanistan, and tried to force a political settlement among the Afghans. Now that the Russian threat had dissipated, however, the U.S. declined to intervene and walked away from the war-torn country, leaving behind large caches of weapons and CIA-trained guerrillas wandering the streets of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

With the end of the war, said Kux, the nuclear issue once again became paramount in U.S.-Pakistan relations. In 1990, U.S. intelligence definitively proved that Pakistan had a nuclear capability, and Pakistan was asked to roll back. Islamabad protested, stating that its nuclear capability had remained the same since the Pressler Amendment went into effect. Despite this, the amendment kicked in and, in October of 1990, aid to Pakistan fell from $574 million to zero. The relationship, said Kux, has been “downward ever since.”

According to Kux, Washington cites several reasons for placing Pakistan on its blacklist—and some are blatantly hypocritical. The U.S. sees Pakistan’s backing of Kashmiri freedom fighters as “state-sponsored terrorism”—although the U.S.-trained Afghan Mujahideen, he noted, were “hailed as heroes.” Pakistan’s acknowledgement of the neighboring Taliban regime, whom Kux called “universal pariahs,” is a further bone of contention, as is its nuclear capability. Despite the fact, however, that India pursues terror campaigns in Kashmir and has an equally active nuclear program, it has not been made to suffer equally stringent sanctions and reprisals.

In response to a question on the reasons behind the two nations’ volatile relationship, Kux stressed that “American interests and Pakistani interests have differed as often as they were in phase.…The tendency in Pakistan and here [U.S.] to gloss over this,” he warned, “tends to amplify the sense of distress in Pakistan over this relationship.”

“It is difficult now to imagine the U.S. and Pakistan having a common adversary,” commented the Wilson Center’s Robert Hathaway. “Does this suggest that we are unlikely to move beyond this impasse?”

Kux hesitated, then replied, “I’m an optimist. One gets the sense that Pakistan is moving on the issues the U.S. has stressed.”

The government is trying to rein in extremists and, over the next two years, he predicted, Pakistan will move toward a guided democracy. In closing, Kux expressed the hope that the U.S. would re-institute aid to Pakistan: “It is not in the U.S. interest to be giving $65-$70 million each year to Bangladesh and nothing to Pakistan,” he said. “We are also tied to it in a different way—through the large Pakistani-American community.”

—Homayra Ziad

Washington Seminar on Agra Summit

The American Institute of International Studies (AIIS), a California-based think tank, held a seminar in Washington, DC on Aug. 8 to discuss the outcome of the July Musharraf-Vajpayee summit in the Indian city of Agra. Scheduled speakers at the seminar included Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, the Stimson Institute’s Michael Krepton, and Bruce Robertson of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. While Deputy Chief of Mission Zamir Akram represented the Pakistan Embassy, there was no showing from the Indian Embassy.

Opening the seminar, AIIS President Syed R. Mahmood said that the Institute’s primary objective was to help build peace in South Asia by providing channels of communication between India and Pakistan. Emphasizing the need for peace between two nuclear powers home to over a billion impoverished people, he urged individuals, groups and governments all over the world interested in the promotion of peace to help India and Pakistan resolve their disputes and disagreements through peaceful means. He offered the AIIS platform for this purpose.

Stephen Cohen saw the Agra summit as opening up possibilities for a better understanding between New Delhi and Islamabad, as well as increasing tensions between them. He found the climate in India more conducive to a relatively open discussion on the Kashmir question and other bilateral issues. “There is no debate on the subject in Pakistan,” said Cohen. “Public opinion is the same as the official position.”

This, in his opinion, does not contribute to a fruitful dialogue on conflict resolution. Cohen regretted that there was insufficient preparation for the Agra parleys, and hoped the United States would continue to play “its discreet role behind the scenes” to bring India and Pakistan to the negotiating table.

Michael Krepon wished the Musharraf-Vajpayee talks had been more “structured.” “Open-ended meetings with no defined agenda do not produce results,” he said, “unless the parties have a will to pursue mutual agreements even after the talks—as happened at the Reykjavik summit in l985 between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.”

According to Krepon, there are three major issues that should be addressed in order to establish a sustainable peace in the subcontinent: 1) a mutually agreed resolution of the Kashmir issue; 2) nuclear non-proliferation; and 3) effective curtailment of terrorism. In his view, a climate of mutual trust is essential, and this could develop if India and Pakistan are willing to forget the past and bury the hatchet. Any small beginning in this direction, he said, would be welcome. Krepon expressed his alarm at the growth of the religious right in Pakistan. Interestingly, however, he made no reference to the religious extremism which has been spreading in India in recent years. Krepon doubted if external intervention would be of any help in resolving the tensions.

The Foreign Service Institute’s Robertson clarified that he was speaking for himself and did not represent the U.S. State Department. Choosing his words carefully, he tiptoed through the subject’s landmines, avoiding any definitive statements. Nevertheless, he noted that “democratic India” provided a better environment for open discussion on sensitive subjects than did Pakistan. He cautioned both India and Pakistan to steer away from the extremist forces that oppose peace between the two countries. “There are David Dukes” on both sides, Robertson warned, but better wisdom should be allowed to prevail.

He lauded India for “forgetting the Kargil [fighting] and inviting General Musharraf.” Similarly, he welcomed Pakistan’s invitation to Prime Minister Vajpayee, adding, “There is more to gain from cooperating with each other than for each to go their different ways.”

Indians and Pakistanis living abroad, including the United States, he said, could contribute to removing tensions between the two countries.

Deputy Chief of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, Zamir Akram, answered most of the questions that were raised by other speakers who, directly or indirectly, portrayed Pakistan as “the bad guy” in South Asia. “We [Indians and Pakistanis] are unfortunately prisoners of our past,” he remarked. He urged a recognition of the ground realities if any headway is to be made toward normalcy and peace between India and Pakistan. Both countries, he added, need to learn to live with each other, because “we can choose our friends but we have to live with our neighbors.”

The Pakistani diplomat disagreed with the suggestion that the intensity of the Kashmir dispute would diminish over time. Advocating third-party mediation, Zamir pointed to the Indus Basin Treaty that was signed between India and Pakistan as a result of an international presence.

In order to lend a balance to the seminar, organizers invited an Indian Muslim American, Islam Siddiqi, a former deputy secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, as well as Vijay Sazaval, a Hindu Kashmiri, to address the audience. Siddiqi called for the dialogue between the two countries to continue. Sazaval provided “the other perspective” to the Kashmir issue, advocating a just settlement where all components are satisfied.

—M.M. Ali

Harvard Economist Discusses Economic, Social Conditions of Palestinian Territories

The Washington, DC-based Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine hosted a lecture by Dr. Sarah Roy on changes in Palestinian social and economic conditions. Dr. Roy, a research associate at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, has resided and conducted research for over a decade in Palestinian occupied territories.

Examining transformations undergone by the Palestinian community during the so-called “peacemaking years,” Dr. Roy stated that Oslo has disempowered the Palestinians as a political collective. The construct of Oslo, she asserted, has nurtured the economic and social decline of Palestinian society, creating the context for the current uprising. There has been a noticeable shift from the community to the individual within the Palestinian community, she noted, which has been fortified by the “dissection” of Palestinians into disunited towns and villages interrupted by Israeli checkpoints and ruled by a corrupt and repressive Palestinian Authority (PA).

The lack of a shared political nationalistic ideology and the “deliberate disempowerment” of political institutions, said Roy, led to the depoliticization of the Palestinians, and secured political control of the PA at the expense of liberation. Roy also explained that, under the PA, nationalism became defined as unquestionable allegiance to the PA and its security apparatus, rather than to liberation and independence. As a result, she said, “pluralism rapidly ceded to statism, bureaucratism, and authoritarianism.”

Roy stated that new economic and elite classes have emerged within Palestinian society since the creation of the PA, thus supporting the PA’s exclusionary dynamics. This has resulted in the alienation and resignation of larger segments of the Palestinian society from the political process, she said. This, according to Roy, has been further nurtured by the PA’s gross human rights record, including arbitrary arrests, lack of due legal process, torture, and execution. The PA—the only symbol of a Palestinian national movement—became associated with corruption and lawlessness, said Roy, thus further demoralizing the larger Palestinian national psyche.

This, she continued, eroded the notion of a collective Palestinian identity and turned Palestinians inward. Roy attributed to the latter the noticeable and unusually high increase in interclan violence, domestic abuse, increased tribalism, and other forms of violence. Israeli-imposed closure, Roy explained, only intensified this trend.

Likewise, on the economic side, the peace process has not delivered to Palestinians promises of great economic prosperity and development, Roy observed. Indeed, Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land has fortified its control over Palestinian economic resources and activities, she said. The average Palestinian unemployment rate during the Oslo peace process reached a staggering 25 percent. This was coupled with rising rates of child labor. Roy also explained that, due to a deteriorating standard of living among Palestinians, average salaries earned by Palestinians were spent primarily on food as opposed to health and education. She noted a rapid return to subsistence living within the Palestinian areas. The PA’s protectionist economic policies, Roy argued, have only exacerbated the decline in Palestinian economic conditions.

Since the start of the second intifada, Roy said, using figures that are more optimistic than many Palestinians have reported, the Palestinian economy has lost nearly $1.5 billion. Unemployment has soared up to 40 percent in Gaza and 60 percent in the West Bank. Furthermore, average annual domestic income per capita has declined from $2,000 to a little over $1,000. Nearly one-third of Palestinians currently live below the level of poverty, Roy noted.

In conclusion, Dr. Roy explained that, in order to understand the roots of the current Palestinian uprising, the failures of Oslo have to be noted and addressed.

—Asma Yousef

Israelis, Palestinians and Internationals Protest Occupation of Orient House

Standing together to protest the Sharon government’s occupation of Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in Arab East Jerusalem, some 300 Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators gathered in front of Jerusalem’s St. George’s Cathedral on Aug. 15. Chanting “Peace Yes—Occupation No!” and “Hands off the Orient House!” the demonstrators surged onto the Nablus Road.

A forest of banners were carried by Israelis of the Women’s Coalition and Gush Shalom and a whole spectrum of smaller contingents; Palestinians of various political affiliations and social classes, from dignitaries in neat clothes to young boys; and the internationals—Americans, Italians, French, Canadians, Danes—who had borne much of the brunt of protests in the previous four days. At the procession’s head marched Knesset members Issam Mahul of Hadash, Taleb al-Sana of the United Arab List, and dissident Laborite KM Yossi Katz, together with such religious dignitaries as Akram Sabri, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Asal.

A larger stream of East Jerusalem Palestinians joined the protest, listening to speeches by the young Abd-El-Kader alHusseini, who spoke movingly of peace and coexistence and Jerusalem as the capital of two states, and vowed to continue in the way of Faisal Husseini, his illustrious father. After the Knesset members spoke, Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom and Gila Svirsky of the Women’s Coalition spoke.

To avert the danger of a police assault on Palestinian demonstrators after the departure of buses back to Tel Aviv, the Israelis formed a screen for Palestinians from the police, allowing them to disperse safely. Perhaps authorities had had enough of the violent scenes broadcast daily from Jerusalem since the takeover of Orient House on Aug. 10.

Organizers wished to take no chances, however, after Andy Clamo, a 26-year-old American Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, was arrested by Israeli police forces for taking part in a peaceful demonstration in front of Orient House on Aug. 11. He and other participants, including 35 internationals, stood in front of the American Colony Hotel near Orient House. Suddenly demonstrators were rushed by 30 Israeli police who, according to eyewitnesses and press footage, used clubs, feet and fists to subdue and apprehend Andrew and other participants.

Following a large Israeli military invasion of the Palestinian town of Jenin, a similar invasion of Beit Jala was averted at the last moment by U.S. pressure and dissension within the Sharon cabinet on Aug. 14. Many of the courageous young internationals who particpated in the Orient House protests acted as a “Human Shield” against the tanks poised on the edge of Beit Jala and its neighbors, Bethlehem and Beit Sahour.

—Courtesy Gush Shalom

Free Orient House! Free Palestine!

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations picketed the Israeli Embassy on Kensington High Street in London on Aug. 16 to show solidarity with Palestinians, the International Solidarity Campaign and Israeli peace organizations demonstrating in Jerusalem.

Protesters called for the immediate restoration of Orient House to Palestinian control and recognition of its rightful status as the site of legitimate and peace-seeking activities of the Palestinian people. They asked the British government to condemn Israel’s illegal and brutal actions, the takeover of Orient House and closure of other Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem. Israel should abide by all U.N. resolutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Participants, including members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Al-Awda, Green Ribbons, Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Palestinian Return Center, called for an end to the escalating violence and for an end to its root cause: Israeli military occupation of Palestinian lands.

—Frankie Green