Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HYPOCRISY: an excerpt from my letter to Holy Land Trust regarding its cancellation of visit by Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama

2006-02-24T04:50:00.000+02:00

Rather than expressing solidarity with another people living under occupation, the Palestinian Authority has sided with the occupier -- the Chinese government -- against the Tibetan people. The PA's citation of the Dalai Lama's "separatist ambitions for Tibet" is so obviously and egregiously hypocritical that it hardly seems worth noting.

I feel deeply uncomfortable making such comparisons but quite frankly, the plight of Tibetans living under Chinese rule is more dire than that of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. The situation in Palestine -- the settlements, the military incursions, the checkpoints, the apartheid wall, the economic strangulation -- is abhorrent and demands the world's attention and solidarity. But the situation in Tibet is sadly even more desperate, as no nation or international institution has ever applied any meaningful pressure on China for an end to the ongoing injustice in Tibet.

Tibetans have absolutely no freedom of speech, assembly, press, or religion. In many cases, they are forbidden from receiving an education in their own language. They can be arrested and imprisoned for seven years for simply possessing a photo of their most beloved religious leader. Uttering the words "free Tibet" or being found in possession of political materials such as a Tibetan flag is illegal. Many Tibetans have suffered for years in prison for such nonviolent "transgressions." Reliable statistics suggest that since China's invasion began in 1949 (not ancient history but a year after Israel was declared), over one million Tibetans have died as a direct result of China's occupation.

Unlike in some Palestinian areas, Tibetans enjoy no autonomy or even semi-autonomy. In December, I attended the International Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem, sponsored by your organization. It was excellent to see that it was attended by many Palestinians and a large number of activists from all over the world who came to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause (and some of whom actively work for the end of the Israeli occupation). The idea of such a conference being held in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa -- or anywhere else in occupied Tibet -- is laughable. Visas would not be granted. Travel would not be permitted. The Tibetans who launched the idea would be quickly rounded up, beaten, tortured and handed long prison sentences out of the view of the news media. The families of the arrested Tibetans would be threatened, maybe fired from their jobs. Anyone else associated with those suspected of political activities would be scrutinized and surveillance and security would be stepped up immediately.

I have traveled in both Tibet and Palestine and have known many Tibetans and Palestinians. While I have found a way to compare the relative plights of these two peoples, I believe both struggles for self-determination have equal and undeniable merit.

The Palestinian Authority's statement announcing the cancellation of the Dalai Lama's visit reads as if it was drafted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. I half hope it was as otherwise it would betray the PA's total ignorance of the Tibetan cause or the role of the Dalai Lama. As noted above, the statement cites his "separatist ambitions for Tibet." While most Tibetans want to see a return to Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama has, since 1988, repeatedly expressed a desire only for "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet. He has candidly said that Tibet should "remain within the People's Republic of China." He has preached nonviolence and forgiveness to Tibetans frustrated at the ongoing repression they suffer. He has continued to attempt to engage the Chinese government in dialogue about how to resolve the Tibetan plight in a way that would simply offer Tibetans fundamental rights to practice and preserve their ancient culture, which is gravely endangered. Despite the fact that self-determination is also a fundamental right of all people guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Dalai Lama has given up on that basic right in the hope that he can simply find a way to end China's continued brutal repression of Tibetans.

The blatant hypocrisy of the Palestinian Authority's condemnation of the Tibetan struggle under occupation as "separatism" is unforgivable. It belies all of the PA's and its predecessor's bold declarations about liberty, inalienable rights, and the prerogative to fight occupation.

My support for the Palestinian people's struggle for an end to the Israeli occupation is unconditional. But the Palestinian Authority's particular struggle has been shown to be nothing more than a desire to play the field in the great geopolitical game and get what they think is theirs. Courting the authoritarian Chinese government may bring money and guns but such a short-sighted, hypocritical approach runs the risk of squandering the international solidarity that has been indispensable to the advancements the Palestinian cause has made over the years.

I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,
Han-shan

Development Director
Students for a Free Tibet*
http://studentsforafreetibet.org

*For affiliation/identification purposes. This letter represents my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the position of Students for a Free Tibet

Open Letter of Palestinian Filmmakers

2006-02-13T01:55:00.000+02:00

Feb. 7th, 2006

Last month, forty Palestinian filmmakers and cultural workers signed a letter addressed to Ms. Catherine Colomb-Nancy at the Europeaid Office in Brussels regarding their concerns about the Euromed Audiovisual II Project and suggested a meeting in which they could exchange views about the proposal. The letter was sent via fax, email and a hard copy via regular mail. Alarmingly, no one from Euromed responded to the letter, let alone even acknowledged it.

The major concerns outlined in the letter were twofold:

1) That this entity calling itself the Ramallah Film Institute is in fact not registered in Palestine: Euromed lists the partners of the project to be the New Foundation for Cinema and Television (Israel) and the Ramallah Film Institute (Palestinian Authority). Attached is an official letter from the Palestinian Ministry itself stating that the Ramallah Film Institute is not registered anywhere within the Palestinian Authority. The Ramallah Film Institute, aside from having no relationship with the local Palestinian cultural community is, in fact, an Israeli-registered organization.

2) The fact that the Israeli partner is a government organization (established by the Ministry of Education, Culture & Sport with the assistance of The Israel Film Council) - a government that continues its illegal and harsh occupation of Palestine and continues to deny Palestinians their rights. In addition, the New Foundation for Cinema and Television has refused to openly reject occupation nor work actively for its removal. (Our objections are not with individual Israelis nor with organizations that work towards Palestinian freedom but rather with government organizations such as the New Foundation for Cinema & Television who refuse to recognize our rights).

A follow up letter was sent to the E.U office three weeks later and was also subsequently ignored. Clearly the concerns of forty of Palestines preeminent artists, including those we have defined Palestinian cinema itself internationally including Elia Suleiman, Hany Abu Assad, Rashid Masharawi, and Mai Masri mean nothing to the Euromed Project. Clearly the fact that the former board members of the Ramallah Film Festival, like George Khleifi, who quit because financial reports were not given to the board when requested, appears to be meaningless to Euromed. And the interest and concerns of Palestines numerous community and cultural organizations have no value.

Two months ago, in December, when rumors first emerged that this project was forming, Adam Zuabi himself was requested to provide more information about the project to an e-mail list of filmmakers. He chose not to respond and to this day has not addressed us nor provided any information about the project, including its upcoming launch at the Berlinale.

The question is, why was this letter disregarded? Why were the concerns of Palestinian individuals working in the cultural scene, many who have previous experience working with the Ramallah Film Festival in the past, thrown to the side?

We are forty Palestinians we are from here, we live here, we work here, we part of this community. We refuse to be ignored. We do not want well-funded projects imposed upon us from the outside without any regard for our concerns. It is a slap in the face of Palestinian filmmakers, intellectuals and cultural workers who have been working for decades to be seen as independent, respected artists. We have contacted Euromed professionally and openly. We demand acknowledgement.

Adam Zoabi (and his Ramallah Film Institute) is free to do whatever he wants. That is his right. And Euromed is free to support whoever they choose. And we are very aware that joint Israeli-Palestinian projects are sexy and lucrative, especially in Europe.

However Palestine is not a jungle and there are people in this community who are working very hard to better our situation. Financial transparency and accountability is vital to this. We are working against organizations who believe that financial records are private rather than public. We ask organizations who claim to serve the community to actually have a relationship with that community. And organizations who wish to publicly claim they are registered within the Palestinian Authority to actually be registered. Throwing funding and/or projects at less wealthy countries who are struggling with corruption and supporting projects that are not rooted within the community nor take into consideration the concerns of the local community they purport to be helping hurt the Palestinian community considerably.

We demand that Euromed immediately correct its statement and all publicity and other materials which falsely claim that this project (Greenhouse) is a partnership between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before the grand launch at the Berlinale in Germany. This is not a partnership between an Israeli organization and a Palestinian Authority organization. Euromeds Greenhouse Project is a partnership between two Israeli-registered organizations and we demand that this be amended in their publications and that the name of Palestine is not used to promote a partnership which actually does not exist and which only serves to benefit a few individuals rather than the community it claims to be serving.

We challenge David Fisher and the New Foundation for Cinema and Television to openly reject occupation and the illegal actions of their government and come out in support of the full rights of Palestinian to be free and equal. We call on those who can pressure Israel from within, especially artists and cultural institutions, who have mostly stood silent for years in the face of wanton destruction, oppression and injustice, and perhaps even benefited from occupation, to make their voices heard. We ask that Israelis no longer stand silent in the face of terrible injustices taking place. We believe that it is high time that Israeli institutions wake up to realities and fulfill their moral obligation to resist occupation, and begin to protest the actions of their state. It is time that the international and Israeli communities wake up to the challenge.

And we ask the international community and fellow artists to consider carefully the implications of participating in the Greenhouse Project (Euromed Audiovisual II, proposal Nr. 15). We would hope that, considering that we live under a harsh military occupation and an apartheid system, that it is understandable why we would not want to work with organizations that are part of the same government that imposes this system on us.

Cultural support cannot come in the form of charity or to make oneself feel better without addressing the root causes of the problems and ignoring the concerns of the Palestinian community. To us, this is not only un-desirable, but also objectionable. We have worked and will continue to work with those that have struggled with us to change political realities, to help us improve our lives and who have been mutually respectful.

Attached:
-Original Letter to Europeaid Office
-Follow up letter to Europeaid Office
-Official Letter from the Palestinian Ministry of Interior & Civil Affairs stating that the Ramallah Film Institute is not registered
-Translation of letter from Ministry of Interior & Civil Affairs

------

(Original letter to Europeaid Office)

Jan. 2, 2006

Catherine COLOMB-NANCY
Europeaid Office de Cooop�ration A
Rue de la Loi, 200
B-1049 Bruxelles
Belgique

Dear Ms. Catherine Colomb-Nancy

We, the undersigned, a group of Palestinian filmmakers and cultural workers, are writing to you to kindly request your attention to a matter of some importance.

We have just learned of your Short List for the Euromed Audiovisual II, for the development of documentary film. Among the short-listed recipients are the Ramallah Film Institute (Palestinian Authority) & The New Foundation for Cinema and Television (Israel) (proposal Nr. 15).

We realize how important this funding can be for the development of documentary film practices in the region and especially in Palestine. However, in order for Palestinian filmmakers to benefit from such an opportunity to develop their film careers, we believe this funding must be channeled in an acceptable framework, that is transparent, trusted, and rooted in the community.

We have two major concerns about this proposal. First, we would hope that the Euromed funding would be directed to a reputable and trustworthy Palestinian institution. This is not how most who work in the Palestinian film and arts community feel towards what is termed the Ramallah Film Institute, a project administered by Mr. Adam Zuabi. Second, we have great many reservations regarding the partnership of the aforementioned institute with the New Foundation in Israel, a government-funded organization.

On the latter issue, we would like to note that partnering or collaborating with Israeli government sponsored institutions is a very sensitive issue here in Palestine due to such a partnership assuming an equal relationship between two such partners when in fact one is supported by a government that occupies the other. A great many promising projects have failed to achieve their goals because they failed to take into consideration the complexities involved and thus alienated the majority of the communities targeted. We wish not to see the Euromed project end as a failure. On the contrary, we believe that such an opportunity for funding can play a major rule in nurturing documentary film practices in Palestine but money alone cannot achieve this. In order for this to happen we need the community of filmmakers to believe in the project and to trust in it enough to participate in it.

The main issue at hand is that we Palestinian filmmakers, many of us based in Ramallah, have never even heard of the Ramallah Film Institute. We do not know who they are, what their purpose is, and seriously question the legitimacy of such an institution as it seems not to be registered in Palestine, either as a school, an organization, or a company.

We also have many reservations stemming from previous activities carried out by Mr. Zuabi in the name of Palestinian cinema and Palestinian filmmakers. In particular, his work as the director of the Ramallah Film Festival has significantly alienated the local community and many cultural organizations in Palestine. One example is that after requesting of him to provide financial reports following last years Ramallah Film Festival, his entire board of directors resigned as they were never provided with this important data involving the project. Therefore, we would like to raise these concerns and to signal the reservations of a great many established cultural figures here towards any project involving Mr. Zuabi, before the Euromed fund decisions are finalized.

We are writing to you kindly asking that you take these concerns into account before you arrive at a decision. We would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with you or any other official in charge of this project in the organization. We believe such a meeting or exchange of views and concerns can greatly assist in ensuring that the Euromed project will succeed in achieving its goals.

Sincerely yours,

1. Sobhi al-Zobaidi, Filmmaker & Academic. Ramallah, Palestine
2. Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker & Curator, Ramallah, Palestine
3. Najwa Najjar, Filmmaker, Ramallah, Palestine
4. Elia Sulieman, Filmmaker, Paris/Nazareth, Palestine
5. Hany Abu Assad, Director, Netherlands/Nazareth, Palestine
6. Rashid Masharawi, Palestinian Filmmaker
7. Mai Masri, Filmmaker, Nablus/Beirut
9. Raed Al-Helou, Filmmaker, Ramallah
10. Ismail Habbash, Filmmaker, Ramallah
11. Rowan Faqih, Filmmaker, Ramallah
12. Ahmad Habash, Director/Animator, Ramallah
13. Nizar Hasan, Filmmaker, Nazareth
14. Raed Andoni, Producer, Ramallah
15. Hanna Elias, Director, Los Angeles /Ramallah
16. Dr. Alia Arasoughly, Filmmaker, Sociologist of Culture (Cinema)
17. Hanna Atallah,Filmmaker, Ramallah,Palestine
18. Abdel Salam Shehada, Filmmaker, Gaza
19. Emily Jacir, Artist, Rome/Ramallah
20. Dima Abu Ghoush, Filmmaker, Ramallah
21. Fatin Farhat, Director, Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah
22. Adania Shibli, Writer, London/Jerusalem
23. Shadi Zmorrod, Theater actor and Director, Palestine
24. Liana Badr, Minstry of Culture, Palestine
25. Hicham Kayed, Filmmaker, Lebanon
26. Khaled Katamish, Director, El-Funon Dance Troupe
27. Noora Baker, Activity Coordinator, Popular Art Center, Palestine
28. Mohammed Atta, Director, Wishah Dance Troupe, Palestine
29. Iman Hammouri, Director, Popular Art Center, Palestine
30. Tareq Abu-Lughod, Filmmaker, Amman
31. Issa Freij, D.P., Filmmaker, Jerusalem
32. Azza Al Hassan, Filmmaker, Amman, Jordan
33. Nahed Awwad, Filmmaker, Ramallah
34. Saed Andoni, Producer/Director, Ramallah
35. Ghada Terawi, Filmmaker, Palestine
36. Rawan Sharaf, Production Designer, Jerusalem, Palestine
37. George Khleifi, Filmmaker & Academic, Ramallah
38. Kamal Aljafari, Cologne/Ramle, Palestine
39. Reem Fadda, Director, Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art (PACA)
40. Khaled Elayyan, Alkasaba Theater, Ramallah

-----

(follow up letter to EU)

Jan. 29th, 2006

Dear Ms. Carla Montesi

We sent a letter to Ms. Catherine Colomb-Nancy three weeks ago but did not receive any response nor acknowledgement of our letter. We have also tried calling her office but received no answer.

The attached letter is a petition from 40 Palestinian filmmakers who are very concerned of the short listing of a partnership proposal between the Ramallah Film Institute and the New Foundation for Cinema and Television (Israel).

We have voiced our reasons for our concerns in addition to the fact that the Ramallah Film Institute is only an Israeli-registered Institution in Jerusalem and is not registered in the Palestinian Authority as is noted in the Euromed proposal. Aside from meaning that it is therfore not eligible for funds allocated to the Palestinian territories, it is also misleading on the part of both the Ramallah Film Institute and Euromed.

We would very much like to further discuss this matter with you. Our letter of three weeks ago was sent to Ms. Catherine Colomb-Nancy via fax, email, and regular mail. We would be very appreciative if there was some kind of acknowledgement of our correspondence.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Najwa Najjar, Annemarie Jacir and Sobi Zobaidi
on behalf of the Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions

ccd: Catherine Colomb-Nancy

----

translation of official document

Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestinian National Authority
Ministry of Interior & Civil Affairs

(December 31st, 2005)

To : Mr. Falah Abu Al-Rob
Director of Licensing Department - Ministry of Culture

Subject: Ramallah Film Institute

Regarding the above-mentioned subject, we inform you that the Ramallah Film Institute is not officially registered in the Ministry of Interior & Civil Affairs, and we support that you will not deal with the Institute until they officially register.

With thanks,

Fadwa Al-Shaar
General Administrator for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Palestinian National Authority

Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity

2006-01-28T01:20:00.000+02:00

Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
26 January 2006

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4425.shtml

Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Authority legislative
elections has everyone asking "what next"? The answer, and
whether the result should be seen as a good or bad thing,
depends very much on who is asking the question.

Although a Hamas success was heavily trailed, the scale of
the victory has been widely termed a "shock." Several
factors explain the dramatic rise of Hamas, including
disillusionment and disgust with the corruption, cynicism
and lack of strategy of the Fatah faction which has
dominated the Palestinian movement for decades and had
arrogantly come to view itself as the natural and
indisputable leader.

The election result is not entirely surprising, however,
and has been foreshadowed by recent events. Take for
example the city of Qalqilya in the north of the West
Bank. Hemmed in by Israeli settlements and now completely
surrounded by a concrete wall, the city's fifty thousand
residents are prisoners of a giant Israeli-controlled
ghetto. For years Qalqilya was controlled by Fatah but
after the completion of the wall, voters in last years'
municipal elections awarded every single city council seat
to Hamas. The Qalqilya effect has now spread across the
occcupied territories, with Hamas reportedly winning
virtually all of the seats elected on a geographic basis.
Thus Hamas' success is as much an expression of the
determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts
to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It
reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements:
there is occupation, and there is resistance.

For Palestinians under occupation, it is not yet clear
what Hamas' win will mean. It is now common to speak of a
Palestinian "government" being formed out of the election
results, as though Palestine were already a sovereign and
independent state. But if the first duty of a government
is to protect its people's lives, liberty and property,
then the Palestinian Authority has never deserved to be
called a government. Since its inception, it has not been
able to protect Palestinians from lethal daily attacks by
the Israeli army in the heart of their towns and refugee
camps, or to prevent a single dunum of land being seized
for settlements, nor to save a single sapling of the more
than one million trees uprooted by Israel in the past ten
years. Rather, the Palestinian Authority was supposed to
crush Palestinian resistance to make the occupied
territories safe for continued Israeli colonization. Hamas
will certainly not allow that to continue, but whether it
will be able to tranform the Authority into an arm of the
struggle against Israel is by no means certain. Hamas,
which has observed a unilateral truce with Israel for a
year, has signalled that it wants to continue this if
Israel "reciprocates." The movement clearly believes it
can make such an offer from a position of strength and it
is to its tactical advantage to leave uncertainty about
when and how it might resume full-scale armed resistance.

Elements of the Palestinian Authority security services
controlled by Fatah figures may be unwilling to put
themselves under the control of a Hamas-led authority,
which could lead to the collapse of what is left of the
Authority's structure, or even its break-up into personal
militias. Israel and the United States which refuses to
accept the outcome of the election may see an interest in
encouraging such an internal conflict. Israel is likely to
use Hamas' win as a further pretext to tighten repression
and accelerate its unilateral imposition of walls and
settlements on the West Bank designed to annex the maximum
number of land with the minimum not of Palestinians. Such
developments increase the risks of a dramatic escalation
of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

As for the majority of Palestinians, who live as refugees
and exiles in the diaspora, they have been progressively
excluded and marginalized from efforts to solve the
conflict. Whereas the US and its allies, with UN
assistance, went to extraordinary lengths to allow Iraqi
"out of country voters" to participate in that country's
elections, the same powers have shown no interest in
giving Palestinian refugees a voice. Fatah, which many
Palestinian refugees suspect would sell out their rights
in peace deal with Israel, obviously had no incentive to
demand such participation. It remains to be seen if Hamas,
born in Gaza where ninety percent of the population are
refugees, will be able to articulate an agenda that speaks
to the concerns of the diaspora.

For the "international community" -- principally the
'Quartet' made up of the United States, the European
Union, Russia and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the
election result is a major embarassment. They, and the
coterie of well- funded NGOs and think tanks that generate
so much of their intellectual guff have built their
approach on the notion that Palestinian "reform" rather
than an end to the Israeli occupation, is the way to
resolve the conflict. While nominally committing
themselves to a two-state solution, these powers dragged
the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority into an endless game
where Palestinians have to jump through hoops to prove
their worthiness of basic rights, while at the same time
no pressure has been applied to Israel to end the
confiscation of land and expansion of settlements. This
peace process industry chose to hail Israel's tactical
withdrawal of eight thousand settlers from Gaza last
summer, while ignoring the far larger number of settlers
Israel has continued to plant all over the West Bank
effectively rendering a two-state solution unachievable.

The principal purpose of this game is not to bring about a
just and lasting peace but merely to inoculate the players
from the charge that they were doing nothing to resolve a
conflict that remains an enduring focus of regional and
worldwide concern. A true peace effort would require
confronting Israel and holding it accountable, something
none of the Quartet members have the political will to do.
There is no doubt that Fatah was entirely complicit in the
game, to which it had become both a prisoner and an
indispensable partner. Why else would the United States
have desperately tried to shore Fatah up by spending
millions of dollars on projects in recent months designed
to buy votes, and why else would the EU have threatened to
cut off aid if Palestinians voted for Hamas? Most
Palestinians could see clearly that after years of
negotiations and billions of dollars of foreign aid they
are poorer and less free than ever before as more of their
land has been seized. It is no wonder that this kind of
bribery and blackmail had no power over them and probably
had the opposite effect, increasing Hamas support.

Hamas' victory pulls the rug from under the project of
trying to deflect the blame for the conflict from Israeli
colonization to Palestinian internal pathologies. The
peace process industry will not give up easily, however,
and will now urge Hamas to act "responsibly" and to
"moderate" its positions -- which means in effect to
abandoning all forms of resistance and assuming the docile
and complicit role hitherto played by Fatah.

The instant US demand that Hamas "recognize Israel" is
like rewinding the clock twenty-five years to when this
same demand was the pretext to ignore and exclude the PLO
from peace negotiations. But as Hamas has observed, all
the PLO's submission to these demands did not lead to any
loosening of Israel's grip or any lessening of US support
for Israel. Hamas is unlikely to do as the US demands, and
even if it did, it would probably only give rise to new
resistance groups responding to the worsening conditions
on the ground generated by the occupation.

Ali Abunimah is a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada

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Critical Material on Munich

2006-01-18T02:22:00.000+02:00

Three pieces:

- The Angry Arab : Long but very interesting.

- A leter by Mike Odetalla : Summing up Palestinian Criticism

- Charles Krauthammer : Zionist Criticism

Monday, December 26, 2005
http://angryarab.blogspot.com

Spielberg on Munich: the humanization of Israeli killers, and the dehumanization of Palestinian civilians. Or the Celebration of the Israeli Killing Machine. And who is retaliating against whom in the Arab-Israeli conflict? THIS is the question.

by As'ad AbuKhalil

It reminds me of a line that George Carlin�yes, that Carlin�used to use in his comedy routine and went roughly like this: �why do �we� call Israeli terrorists commandos, and we call Palestinian commandos terrorists?� That line never got a laugh the two times I saw him use it with a live audience. The thrust of the Spielberg movie is simple, fanfare notwithstanding: Israeli killers are conscientious and humane people, while Palestinians are always--no matter what--killers. But a Spielberg movie about current affairs is like a Thomas Friedman column about�Emanuel Kant.

What do you expect? Did you notice how one lone critical opinion of the movie by one Israeli diplomat, which only mildly criticized the movie, got so much press in the US? It was needed; and it even helped to promote the movie to give a �balanced� cast to the narrative, that it of course does not deserve. This one critical opinion reminded me of O�Reilly; how he every night finds one email from somebody in Montana who tells him that he is too liberal. He needs that to maintain an image that does not exist, just as Spielberg needs to maintain an image that he does not deserve.

This movie could easily have been a paid Israeli advertisement for its killing machine. In fact, it could be a recruitment movie for Israeli killing squads. I mean that. In fact, it is a celebratory movie of Israeli murder of Palestinians. Israel killing is always moral, and always careful, and always on target.

Today, yet another New York Times reviewer who also thinks that Spielberg was not sympathetic enough to the Israeli killers, even had the audacity to describe Israeli killings at the time as "targeted assassinations" when even Israel had not invented that propaganda term back then. He must have forgotten to remember.

That's all. Where do I begin? I mean yes, I was quite angry watching it; and I got more angry as I watched the Berkeley liberal audience react sympathetically to the movie, rooting for the Israel head killer, as he went about his "civilized" killing. I watched the audience root for an Israeli killing team, and this WAS a true story, and Palestinian victims were real people, with real blood.

The most emotional moment for Spielberg, and presumably for American audiences was when the head killer talked with his baby daughter in New York, that he missed very much. Oh, yeah. That was the point at which you were expected to shed a tear or two; the music got particularly sentimental at that point. It had to be.

But where to begin; the movie was based on a book that took the Israeli account as it was delivered. But the book was honest and more accurate at least on one count: in the book by George Jonas titled Vengeance (only Israelis are entitled to vengeance as you know, the more violent the better as far as some US movie audiences are concerned), the killers did not express regret or second thoughts. None. In the book but not in the movie, the killers, according to Jonas, had "absolutely no qualms about anything they did." How could Spielberg miss that? Well, he just managed. Hell, that was the whole movie, and the whole political project behind it.

Of course, it was not easy for me to watch this movie, I mean not only at the political and intellectual levels, but also at the personal level. I can connect to the story, in its details and personalities. The first victim of the movie was Wa�il Zu`aytir, and I knew his niece; I went to school with Abu Hasan Salamah�s son--he was younger; and I knew the street and building where the three PLO leaders were massacred in Beirut. And let me tell you that NONE of the five people mentioned here had anything to do with Munich--but more on that later. NONE.

But why should this movie, a Spielberg movie for potato�s sake, bother with facts, especially if they come in the way of a smooth pro-Israeli narrative? But this movie is intended for mass audiences who know nothing about the facts of the conflict. That is exactly why it will work, and why it will deliver the (propaganda) goods.

Let me start by saying this: this, Munich that is, was not as planned an operation as has often been maintained. This was not planned months in advance, as Abu Iyad maintained in his account with Eric Rouleau (translated into English as My Home, My Land by dear Linda Butler). Abu Iyad for years exaggerated the claims about the �carefully planned� operation, and PLO media at the time lied about how the PLO gunmen threw grenades into the helicopters, so as to make the last shootout more of a fight that it actually was.

Angry Palestinians who were being hit by Israeli fighter jets in their refugee camps demanded heroes and heroism, and the PLO had to give them some, even if they were not legitimate heroes. The German troops were going to take them out, no matter what, and no matter how much they, the Germans in this case, endangered the lives of the hostages, and they presumably had Israeli consent.

The Arab League diplomat talked about this recently when he broke his silence in an interview on Ziyarah Khassah on Al-Jazeera. He should know: he was the negotiator with the Palestinian team in Munich. Yes, I know. It can be argued that the Palestinian attackers risked the lives of the hostages by taking them hostages, even if they did not intend to kill them. That is true. This is like hijacking: the hijackers, any hijackers, are responsible, and should be held responsible for whatever endangerment to the lives and health of victims. That is true. But it is also true that the State of Israel has taken a nation as a hostage, and has been endangering the lives of Palestinians since the inception of the state of Israel. This is why it is all a question of who is retaliating against whom?

One of the many false premises of the movie is that Israel only went on a killing rampage�and only against Palestinian �killers�--after Munich. That Munich was a watershed. Watershed it was not, except in Israeli propaganda brochures. Israel has been going on killing rampages against Palestinians, civilians mostly, since before the creation of the state of Israel.

And how could you even talk about Golda Meir and forget to mention her most memorable quote: that �there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.� Spielberg must have missed that, just as he needed to show her as grandma goodness who was pushed into vengeance by Palestinian cruelty. More humanization. That is why we had to see the head Israeli killer with his child: you need to see him as a human being. Do you know that not a single Palestinian in the movie appeared unarmed? They all were terrorists, and their murder had to be justified, and Spielberg did a great service for the state of Israel in that regard. They should name some stolen Palestinian property in Israel in his honor, I argue. A street, a destroyed Arab village, or a stolen olive tree. Anything. He deserves it.

And let us see what Israel was doing before Munich. Before Munich, NOT AFTER�did you get that, Israel placed a bomb under the car seat of Palestinian writer/artist, Ghassan Kanafani and killed him and killed his niece. The niece was not plotting the Munich operation when she was murdered by the Israelis; nor was her uncle. That was BEFORE Munich. Kanafani was best friends with my uncle; they both used to write in Al-Hurriyyah magazine during their days at the Movement of Arab Nationalists.

Israel also�BEFORE Munich�sent a letter bomb to Bassam Abu Sharif (a writer and journalist with the PFLP), and left him with life-long scars and bodily damage, and they also sent a letter bomb to Anis Sayigh, a scholar and researcher, who was not a member of any group. But he was a really diligent researcher, and Israel did not appreciate it--I am assuming.

This is not easy for me; I have shaken the hands--or what was left of their hands--of both of those men, and Abu Sharif never had a military role�I say this although I never liked Abu Sharif or respected him (read my review of his memoir in Journal of Palestine Studies a few years ago). But those were innocent victims of Israeli killing. They never held guns those two, or those three, or four. This story is personal for me, of course. I see them as human beings, and not as armed and vengeful characters that they appear in Spielberg�s movie.

And typical of US movies where Arabs appear, Arabs when they speak Arabic never need subtitles. We need them when people speak in French and German, but Arabic is not important. It is not important to know what cheap natives say; we only need to know what expensive people say: Europeans and Israelis. And do you notice that Hollywood still portrays Israelis as Europeans: they still don�t want to accept that some half of all Israelis come from Asian and African countries. This makes it easier for the White Man to identify with them.

And there is this element that is never mentioned about Palestinian attacks: and this is true of the present and of the past. It is not that some Palestinian leaders recruit or compel Palestinians to attack Israelis. It is the other way round. Palestinians, regular rank-and-file and sometimes civilians, pressure Palestinian leaders and commanders to send them on military or suicidal missions against Israeli targets.

Munich occurred exactly like that. Palestinians in the camps in Lebanon, those who were trained by Fateh and by other groups, were lobbying for �action.� Why, you may ask? Well, not only for the loss of Palestine but also because Israel was KILLING Palestinians. In February of the same year PRIOR to Munich, Israeli jets bombed Palestinian refugee camps, and killed tens of innocent people. This is what is missing in the movie, among many other things. Most Palestinians who are killed by Israelis are unarmed and are killed not by assassins who are conscientious and sensitive�as they are outrageously portrayed in this movie�but by pilots who bomb refugee camps filled with unarmed civilians. Palestinians who are bombed from the air, long before Munich, are elderly and people and children in their beds. These are the victims that you will never see in a Spielberg movie. So Israel was killing Palestinians, and this was the context of pre-Munich.

So a small group decided to do something, but they were not sure what, and this was only 3 months before Munich. And one of the handful of people who knew about this, and this will never make it into the press was Abu Mazin--yes, that Abu Mazin, the head of the puppet Palestinian Authority.

But do you notice that US/Israel always forgive the past of those who submit to Israeli dictates? Look at how US and Israel forgave Anwar Sadat for his anti-Semitic Nazi past. Abu Mazin was the money guy, and he dispersed the funds for Abu Dawud, who engineered the operation. And the American public in US media and popular culture is so enamored with the Mossad, that the image of the Mossad does not match its actual reality.

The best evidence is this movie: look at this obsession with Abu Hasan Salamah as the �mastermind� of Munich when he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Munich. To be sure, Abu Hasan was a braggart, and had a big mouth, and would take credit for things he did not do, and would distance himself from failed �operations� that he planned, like the Sabena failed hijacking in 1972. That was Abu Hasan: he lived the life of a playboy, and enjoyed a unique indulgent pampering from Abu `Ammar [Arafat], who treated him like a son. Abu `Ammar would never say no to Abu Hasan, on anything. But Abu Hasan had nothing to do with Munich, and this ostensibly all-knowing Mossad, did not know it, and probably still does not know it.

Former CIA director, Stansfield Turner, once said that the Mossad is a mediocre organization, but that it is outstanding in PR--only in PR. Former CIA man in Beirut Robert Baer said this about the Mossad--I am translating this from an interview he gave to Al-Jazeera: �Let me tell you something, where people most err in the Middle East, and I am responsible for my words to the end, is related to Israeli intelligence. To be sure, they can kill somebody in Paris or Rome or killing the wrong person in Finland or wherever else they did that in [he meant Norway]. To be sure they know Europe and Palestinians, and they know many things about Palestinians, but when it comes to the rest of the Middle East, I have not seen anything from their part that indicated their knowledge of those countries.�

But this can never be maintained in a country that wants to exaggerate the prowess and knowledge of an intelligence agency not only to help feed the Israeli propaganda myth, but to also prepare the American public for more ruthless times and ways. So a very small number of people knew about it, and of course Abu Iyad was one of them. And Abu Iyad is the most important person on the list, and yet his name was NOT on the list, just to show you about how much--or how little-- Israel knew.

Abu Iyad spoke more than he needed not only because he wanted to send a message to the enemy, but also because the wars of factions and "Abu"s within Fateh necessitated a game of one-up-manship, and of wild exaggerations at times. And while Black September was a paper name, and did not have a separate organizational existence or structure, several factions used the name for their own ends. Nobody consulted with Abu Iyad about Abu Hasan�s use of the name for the Sabena�s failed hijacking mentioned above.

Abu Dawud is a key person here. And while his name was mentioned in passing, it was added after the fact in Israeli propaganda accounts. Abu Dawud was arrested in France for another reason in 1977, and he was released because there were no German or Israeli warrants about his involvement in Munich. That shows you. Now, I will not give a blow-by-blow account of Munich. But I personally believe the account of Abu Dawud more than I believe Spielberg, i.e. Israeli propaganda claims, or even German police. (Abu Dawud's account is found in Abu Dawud, Filastin: Mina-l-Quds Ila-Muikh (Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, 1999)).

German police lied quite a bit about the case; they leaked to the press fanciful accounts of Palestinian infiltration of the workforce at the Olympic city, when none of that actually took place. They were too embarrassed to tell the truth. Similarly, the Israelis wanted to back the German account, especially as the violence at Munich was a propaganda bonanza for the Israelis in the West, just as Munich�this is not known in the West�was a propaganda bonanza for Fateh in the Middle East, as horrific as the outcome was for all. And in that sense, the Germans, the Israelis, and Abu Iyad (and certainly Abu Hasan) lied about Munich, but not Abu Dawud, in my opinion.

Abu Dawud is one of those 2nd tier PLO leaders who did not get corrupted in the messy Lebanese scene, and who did now allow the Gulf money that corrupted many PLO leaders to affect him. This was a man who was in charge of Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, and yet his name does not appear in any chronicle of the war because he was too low key, and because he never bragged. (Hell, he never talked even when the brutal mukhabarat in Jordan held him from his feet for days, while torturing him. People who saw him in jail at the time did not recognize him. But you know this: your reliable "moderate" friends in Jordan are quite "good" in torture. They are probably the best; they are helping you in that regard as we speak.)

Most Lebanese did not even know his name. But this also explains why he survived, unlike say Abu Hasan Salamah, who married a Lebanese former Miss Universe, who introduced him to Lebanese bourgeois society, and he could not get enough of that life. He developed a routine, and lived in a fancy apartment on Madame Curie Street in Beirut, and the routine he developed (going to the GYM at the same time every day), made him an easy target. Abu Hasan could get all the money he wanted for his own group from Arafat, and was doing a good job of maintaining not only good relations with the CIA but also with Lebanese right-wing groups. He became good friends with some right-wing militia leaders. Read the novel by David Ignatius, Agents of Innocence: it is about Abu Hasan, although the author does not admit it.

It is interesting that in the movie, the Israeli head killer (who was in the movie Troy) was cast to be most appealing to the audience: a good looking and charismatic figure. Say what you want about Abu Hasan (and many people in the Palestinian struggle, like Abu Dawud, did not like him), but he was a good looking and charismatic figure in real life, not the actor who played him in Spielberg�s movie. But Spielberg did not want the viewer to identify with any Palestinian in the movie: that was contrary to him and to his political goal. He just wanted to identify with the expensive human beings: the Israelis.

The Arabs are worse than they were in Renoir�s painting, the Mosque, as an unidentifiable blob. They were just armed, with no humanity. They were not supposed to evoke emotions, and you were not supposed to see them bleed, and if you did, you had to cheer for their killers. The only ones that you had to feel sorry for were the Israelis who get killed, including the killers when they kill. The music that played when Israelis died was different from the music that played when Palestinians died.

And no speaking roles for Palestinians were necessary. Why bother? Give one a line, and you have done your "objective" duty. And the list of prisoners that attackers submitted to German authorities did not have �200 Arab prisoners� on it, as the movie said. It had some 234 Arab and NON-Arab names on them, including Japanese and German prisoners, but that was not in the movie. And the statement that was issued by the attackers gave a name to the �operation�: Bir`im and Ikrit, names of two (predominantly Christian) villages in northern Palestine, the people of which were expelled by Israeli occupation forces in 1948 for �security reasons.�

In 1972, the people of those villages petitioned the courts to return to their villages, and the courts of course turned them down. But if you were to use the name of the �operation� you would have to tell the audience those burdensome details that would have distracted from the celebration of the Israeli killing machine. But this begs the question: why is Munich more famous than the savage bombardment of Palestinian refugee camps back in February prior to Munich? And why did the letter bombs to three Palestinian writers not get any world attention? Why did American liberals and PEN not notice it back then?

Could you imagine what would happen if a Palestinian threw even a rose at an Israeli writer? Could you imagine what would happen among American leftists if a Palestinian were to say even a bad word to Amos Oz for example? That was the stature of Ghassan Kanafani among Palestinians and Arabs.

Now, I will not get into the military/intelligence background of the Israeli hostages as Abu Dawud does in his memoirs because the attackers did not know that information prior to the �operation.� Abu Dawud gives many details about the military backgrounds of some of the hostages, but I do not think that this is appropriate because even Abu Dawud did not know that before hand. I will not get into what actually happened at the site at the airport when the hostages were being transferred by their captors not only because the captors were responsible by virtue of the hostage "operation", but also because you can raise questions regarding the actual responsibility of the killing of the hostages.

Abu Dawud cites Israeli newspapers from the 1990s in which writers raised questions about German responsibility, and on how the German government never published autopsy reports of the hostages, etc. The Israeli government also did not want to examine the bullets that killed the Israeli hostages. That would have settled the question, of course. Abu Dawud stressed that the attackers were under strict instructions to not shoot at the hostages, and you noticed in the scene, even in the movie, that when they were storming the compound, they clearly struggled with the door and avoided shooting, while that could have shortened the time of entry, and Abu Dawud says that they were under strict instructions to avoid using the grenades. And Abu Dawud raises the possibility that the helicopter may have exploded from a bullet that hit its gas tank, but I don�t know, and I have never relied on Spielberg, or on the silly book on which he based his account, for historical accuracy.

And another thing comes to mind: Palestinians also have managed to assassinate Israeli military and intelligence leaders but that never gets attention because the trend in US media and popular culture is that you should only show Palestinians when they are killing civilians. And it is not true that the Israeli response was confined to the assassination of the 11 Palestinians as was shown in the movie: Israel was also killing other Palestinians. Israeli �response� or initiative we should call it, was more massive and brutal that the operation of the secret team.

Three days after Munich, Israel ordered an air strike which required the use of some 75 Israeli aircrafts (the largest attack since 1967) and the attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon resulted in the killing of more than 200, mostly civilians. And this is not because the Israelis knew that there was a camp north of Sidon that was used for training the Munich attackers. That camp was not even hit (another sign that Israelis had no information about the real culprits of Munich) and other camps with civilians were hit. And then while the assassinations were taking place, Israeli bombing of camps continued uninterruptedly.

And the most glaring omission in the film, which shows you that the Israeli team was not only savage but also ignorant of their targets, was what happened on July 21st 1973, when `Ali Bushiki, a Moroccan waiter resting with his pregnant wife around a swimming pool in Norway, was murdered by that assassination team merely because `Ali resembled what the hit team thought Abu Hasan Salamah looked like. (The Norwegian police tracked and arrested the killers, but they were all released in a secret deal with the Israeli government--is that not nice?) Should that not have made it to the movie? But that would have made them look more brutally clumsy than Spielberg wanted them to look like.

And even Wa�il Zu`yatir, the PLO representative in Rome. He knew nothing about Munich, and was an academic with close ties to socialist circles in Italy. Zu`ytir was shot 14 times. He never held a gun in his life. These Israeli team members were killers who really relished killing, and did not seem susceptible to moral second-thinking as was stressed over and over again in the movie. Zu`ytir was more interested in literature than he was in military affairs, on which he knew nothing. And the PLO representative in France, Mahmud Hamshari, also had nothing to do with Munich; Israeli propaganda later had to contend with that, and claimed after killing him that the attackers passed through France on their way to Munich. In reality, the attackers never stepped on French soil when they went to Germany.

And the movie, it seems really enjoyed covering the 1973 massacre in Beirut. Spielberg, I could tell, really enjoyed learning and covering that massacre by Israeli terrorist squads. But who were the three PLO personalities killed in that "operation"? And who cares about the details? Kamal `Udwan was the Fateh/PLO leader responsible for the West Bank and Gaza. He not only had no responsibilities in Europe, but he opposed �operations� in Europe, and even those by Black September. More than that, `Udwan was one of the most moderate Fateh leaders, having accepted the two-state solution back in 1970, before any of his colleagues in Fateh.

Abu Yusuf An-Najjar was in charge of intelligence in Lebanon�Lebanon, not Europe. While `Udwan had no knowledge of Munich, Abu Yusuf may have heard about it but had no role whatever in it. The third person was a poet: and you know how much Israelis like to murder Palestinian poets, artists, and writers. Kamal Nasir was a poet, and was killed in his bed. The movie did not tell you that by the time the Israeli terrorists finished with their �mission,� some 100 Palestinians and Lebanese were murdered on that day in April 1973.

I also was amused--not really--how Spielberg portrayed the neighborhood where the PLO leaders AND others were killed: it had all the features of Orientalist imagination. It was traditional and the houses were old styles with arches, and the place was protected like a military base. In reality, the PLO leaders lived in a residential building in the most modern and upper class neighborhood of Verdun in Beirut. But why bother with that detail too.

And the Fateh representative in Cyprus also had nothing to do with Munich; he was the intelligence envoy of Abu Yusuf An-Najjar. And some people on the list of the Israeli murder team were not only not involved with Black September, but some were not even members of the Fateh organization. Basil Al-Kubaysi was a Palestinian scholar who had just completed his PhD in political science; I recently had dinner with Basil�s best friend in college in Canada. Kubaysi was in the PFLP and not in the Fateh organization.

The same for Muhammad Budia: he was with Wadi` Haddad, and not with Black September. But then again: I read that Spielberg offered the script to Dennis Ross and to Bill Clinton to verify the �accuracy� of Middle East political and historical references. The two are experts on the Middle East, in case you have not heard. More than that, the movie did not tell you that on September 16th, and 17th, Israel launched a savage invasion of South Lebanon, erasing the refugee camp of Nabatiyyah, and the Lebanese newspapers at the time (I even remember that as a 12 year old) had on the first page that famous picture of a smashed civilian car with seven Lebanese civilians smashed inside when an Israeli tank ran over the car near Jwayya in South
Lebanon.

That must have been too messy for Spielberg to cover. Why bother? And the car had stopped at the Israeli checkpoint that was set up at the entrance to the village. Were those civilians in the car also involved in Munich? Later, as the movie ended, it was written on the screen that Abu Hasan Salamah was later �assassinated.� Spielberg forgot to add that he was �assassinated� by a massive car bomb in a crowded street in Beirut, which killed and injured tens of people�oh, and those people also were not involved with Munich.

The reviews of the movie in US media almost expressed frustration that Spielberg did not express enough sympathy for the Israeli killers. Only Michelle Goldberg of Salon, to her credit (great review Michelle), pointed out that, contrary to that lousy review by Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic, �many of those [Israelis] in Munich are, if anything, slightly unbelievable in their constant self-interrogation and closely guarded humanism.�

I was thinking after the movie that public ignorance of the Middle East greatly helps Israeli propaganda; this explains why Zionist organizations express contempt and wrath at Middle East expertise and specialty (as in MESA) because those who get to know and learn about the Middle East overwhelming find it difficult if not impossible to consume the unbelievable dosages of Israeli propaganda delivered via US media and popular and political cultures.

*Three of the Munich Palestinian attackers survived. One died from a heart attack; the remaining two are...somewhere in the Middle East.

hanini@comcast.net wrote:

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: hanini@comcast.net
To: ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com
Subject: RE: "The cunning deceit behind `Munich' " by Charles Krauthammer
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:15:34 +0000

RE: "The cunning deceit behind `Munich' " by Charles Krauthammer
ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com

Dear Editor:

Charles Krauthammer is once again given a platform to propagate the Zionist ideals for justifying the rape and theft of Palestine from its indigenous native population based NOT on historical facts, but Zionist mythology.

I would also like to remind Mr. Krauthammer and his readers that Israeli assassinations and murder of Palestinians did not start nor end with Munich. In fact, Israel had been in the business of assassinating Palestinian intellectuals, artists, writers, journalists, and political leaders long before Munich and ever since.

Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, one of my favorite writers was murdered along with his young niece by Israeli agents in July of 1972, more than 2 full months before Munich.

I am guessing that Mr. Krauthammer knows these facts, but as many times in the past, he never let them get in the way of a �good story��

Mike Odetalla

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601160175jan16,0,3221377.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

The cunning deceit behind `Munich'

Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: Washington Post Writers Group
Published January 16, 2006

WASHINGTON -- If Steven Spielberg had made a fictional movie about the psychological disintegration of a revenge assassin, that would have been fine. Instead, he decided to call this fiction "Munich" and root it in a real historical event: the 1972 massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Once you've done that--evoked the actual killing of innocents who, but for Palestinian murderers, would not be much older than Spielberg himself today--you have an obligation to get the story right.

The only true part of the story is the few minutes spent on the actual massacre. The rest is invention, as Spielberg delicately puts it in the opening credits, "inspired by real events."

By real events? Rubbish. Inspired by Tony Kushner's belief (he co-wrote the screenplay) that the founding of Israel was a "historical, moral, political calamity" for the Jewish people.

It is an axiom of filmmaking that you can only care about a character you know. In "Munich," the Israeli athletes are not only theatrical but historical extras, stick figures. Spielberg dutifully gives us their names--Spielberg's List--and nothing more: no history, no context, no relationships, nothing. They are there to die.

The Palestinians who plan the massacre and are hunted down by Israel are given--with the concision of the gifted cinematic craftsman--texture, humanity, depth, history. The first Palestinian we meet is the erudite poet giving a public reading, then acting kindly toward his Italian shopkeeper--before he is brutally shot in cold blood by the Jews.

Then there is the elderly Palestine Liberation Organization man who dotes on his young daughter before being blown to bits. Not one of these plotters is ever shown plotting Munich or any other atrocity for that matter. They are shown in the full flower of their humanity, savagely extinguished by the Jews.

But the most shocking Israeli brutality involves the Dutch prostitute--apolitical, beautiful, pathetic--shot to death, naked, of course, by the now half-crazed Israelis settling private business. The Israeli way, I suppose.

Even more egregious than the manipulation by character is the propaganda by dialogue. The Palestinian case is made forthrightly: The Jews stole our land, and we're going to kill any Israeli we can to get it back. Those who are supposedly making the Israeli case say the same thing. The hero's mother, the pitiless committed Zionist, says: We needed the refuge. We seized it. Whatever it takes to secure it. Then she ticks off members of their family lost in the Holocaust.

Spielberg makes the Holocaust the engine of Zionism and its justification. Which, of course, is the Palestinian narrative. Indeed, it is the classic narrative for anti-Zionists, most recently the president of Iran, who says that Israel should be wiped off the map. And why not? If Israel is nothing more than Europe's guilt trip for the Holocaust, then why should Muslims have to suffer a Jewish state in their midst?

It takes a Hollywood ignoramus to give flesh to the argument of a radical anti-Semitic Iranian. Jewish history did not begin with Kristallnacht. The first Zionist Congress occurred in 1897. The Jews fought for and received recognition for the right to establish a "Jewish national home in Palestine" from Britain in 1917 and from the League of Nations in 1922, two decades before the Holocaust.

But the Jewish claim is far more ancient. Israel was their ancestral home, site of the first two Jewish Commonwealths for a thousand years--long before Arabs, long before Islam, long before the Holocaust. The Roman destructions of 70 A.D and 135 A.D. extinguished Jewish independence but never the Jewish claim and vow to return to their home. The Jews' miraculous return 2,000 years later was tragic because others had settled in the land and had a legitimate competing claim. Which is why the Jews have for three generations offered to partition the house. The Arab response in every generation has been rejection, war and terror.

And Munich. Munich, the massacre, had only modest success in launching the Palestinian cause with the blood of 11 Jews. "Munich," the movie, now has made that success complete 33 years later. "Munich" now enjoys high cinematic production values and the imprimatur of Steven Spielberg, no less, carrying the original terrorists' intended message to every theater in the world.

This is hardly surprising, considering that "Munich's" case for the moral bankruptcy of the Israeli cause--not just the campaign to assassinate Munich's planners but the entire enterprise of Israel itself--is so thorough that the movie concludes with the lead Mossad assassin, seared by his experience, abandoning Israel forever.
----------

E-mail: letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Excellent article - Eyeless in Gilo: What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine

2006-01-06T00:50:00.000+02:00

January 5, 2006
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON, Former CIA analysts
In mid-November, Hillary Clinton visited Israel and, following a meeting with Ariel Sharon, in remarks that presaged the praise being heaped on the now-comatose Sharon, began her campaign for president by praising the Israeli as a "courageous" man who had taken "an incredibly difficult" step by withdrawing from Gaza. The withdrawal, she claimed with remarkable disregard for reality, was intended as "a means of demonstrating that he is committed to trying to get back into a process" with the Palestinians. Clinton also stopped for a photo op during her trip, in what constituted an equally monumental lie. She stood on a hilltop inside the Israeli settlement of Gilo, an illegal subdivision populated by 28,000 Israelis on the southern edge of Jerusalem overlooking Bethlehem. Gilo is in occupied Palestinian territory. It was built three decades ago, illegally according to international law, on approximately 700 acres of land confiscated from Palestinian ownership. It is just inside the expanded municipal limits of Jerusalem -- boundaries that Israel redrew when it captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, then expropriated 25 square miles of Palestinian West Bank territory and annexed it, also illegally according to international law, to Israeli West Jerusalem.

Clinton stood on this spot and, striking an elaborate pose, gazing pensively off to the side, had her photo taken with the 26-foot-high concrete monstrosity that is Israel's separation wall in the near distance behind her. Where she stood, the wall, like Gilo itself, is built on confiscated Palestinian land. On the other side of the wall, in the middle distance, was the dying little town of Bethlehem, now partially encircled by the wall and cut off from Jerusalem, its religious and cultural twin.

Already surrounded by nine Israeli settlements, including Gilo, by a network of roads restricted to Israeli use, and by what the UN estimates are 78 Israeli checkpoints and other physical obstacles to Palestinian movement, Bethlehem has had only limited access to its surroundings for years. Completion of the wall on its northern and western sides, separating it from Jerusalem, is the final closure on Bethlehem's breathing room. A huge terminal went into operation in November, requiring travelers entering and leaving Bethlehem to pass through multiple turnstiles, x-ray scans, and permit checks. Palestinians must have hard-to-obtain permits to leave Bethlehem. The terminal is manned by both Israeli military and civilians. It functions like nothing so much as an international border, except that the guards and soldiers on both sides of this border are Israeli.

If you know Palestine, Clinton's photo-op beggars the imagination. She no doubt knows nothing of the history of the area; she might even be excused for not knowing that Gilo is in occupied territory. But one would like to assume that she is a thinking, feeling human being, able to see at a glance the huge concreteness of the wall and the scar it leaves across the land and across Palestinian humanity. Yet her ability to stand in front of the wall and sing its praises is clear testimony to the power of denial, and the power of politics. Clinton made it clear that she had no intention of visiting "Palestinian areas" -- by which she meant Palestinian areas where Israelis do not yet live -- and her promise was triumphantly repeated in Israeli press coverage of her visit. Her constituents in New York and among Democrats eager for her presidential candidacy were undoubtedly also pleased that she refused to associate with those people, the Palestinians.

The wall, Clinton announced in its shadow, coyly mislabeling it a fence, "is not against the Palestinian people," only against the terrorists. As if she knew. As if she knew anything about the situation on the ground. As if the wall selectively disrupts only the plans of a few terrorists and does not destroy the property, the land, the homes, the livelihoods, the very lives of 500,000 innocent Palestinians. In a statement posted on her website following the trip, Clinton affirmed her "strong" support for Israel's "right" to ensure the safety and security of its citizens and to build a "security barrier to keep terrorists out," and boasted that she had "taken the International Court of Justice to task for questioning Israel's right to build the fence." Apparently, we are supposed to be edified by Clinton's cheek in taking an international court to task. Such steely determination on Israel's behalf plays well in the U.S. political arena, where the utter immorality of the wall is of little import.

Squeezed in Nu'man

What Hillary Clinton does not know about the wall, about the Palestinian lives it affects, about anyone's security, would fill a large volume. Take the little village of Nu'man, whose 200 or so inhabitants have lived throughout the 38 years of Israel's occupation in a strange kind of limbo and are now facing the total destruction of their homes and entire village. We visited Nu'man in September and heard its story from the elderly mother of the village leader and her nephew, a young man who is also a leader in the village.

Nu'man lies a few miles northeast of Bethlehem, not more than five miles as the crow flies from where Clinton stood admiring the wall. Few people in Israel and the U.S. had ever heard of Nu'man until just recently when Ha'artez correspondent Gideon Levy revealed that Israeli Border Police, a notoriously vicious lot, had probably tied a Nu'man resident, father of nine children, to his donkey and then spooked the donkey so that it ran and dragged the helpless man to his death. Although the Border Police deny any culpability, the practice is common enough, according to Palestinians, to have acquired a name, "the donkey procedure." Ha'aretz thought to publish an editorial criticizing Israelis for the kind of apathy that allows this sort of thing to happen frequently to Palestinians without anyone noticing, but the criticism is at least 38 years late.

The small village of Nu'man is in a rural area just inside the municipal limits of Jerusalem, but in 1967 when Israel required all residents of the recently captured territories to register and obtain residency cards, Nu'man's inhabitants were given West Bank IDs, meaning it is illegal for them even to be in Jerusalem -- to be in their homes, to live where they live, to have been born where they were born. This anomaly was never a major problem until the 1990s, at the height of the so-called peace process, when Israel imposed closure on the West Bank and Gaza and required that Palestinians have permits before they could enter Israel, including annexed Jerusalem.

Until this point, Nu'man's children had attended schools in Jerusalem, but eight years ago they were barred from Jerusalem and required to go to school in Bethlehem. Like hundreds of tiny rural villages throughout the West Bank, Nu'man depends on other nearby towns and villages, in this case Bethlehem and surrounding villages, for virtually all vital services -- not only schools, but medical services and groceries. But the village is gradually being squeezed on all sides and cut off from its neighbors. To the north, Jerusalem is no longer accessible. The wall, which encircles the village on the east and south, has separated it from several neighboring villages and, when completed, will cut it off from Bethlehem. On the west, the large Israeli settlement of Har Homa is encroaching on village land. Israeli authorities have informed the village that the settlement intends to expand to a hillside literally only a stone's throw away from Nu'man's homes, all of which have been issued demolition orders.

Israel's contention is that these homes, a few of which have already been demolished, were built without permits. And of course this is true. The village, whose inhabitants are Bedouin, has existed since the early 19th century, well before Israel was created and about a century and a half before Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank in 1967, annexed a large swath of land to Jerusalem, and began imposing its own permit regulations, its own laws, and its own expansionist ambitions on another people. Several years ago, Israel tried to buy Nu'man's land, but the villagers refused. The Israelis then cut off the village's water and electricity, but the people existed on wells and were able to get electricity from Bethlehem. When these steps failed to empty the village, Israel began encircling and squeezing it.

Fatma, the village leader's mother, and her nephew explained all this to us matter-of-factly, with remarkably little emotion. Our friend Ahmad interpreted for us. But near the end of our meeting, Fatma began to tell a long story that we did not at first understand, until tears began to roll down her cheeks as she talked. As Ahmad explained the story, one of Fatma's sons, a lawyer, is married to a woman, also a lawyer, who has a Jerusalem ID card. About a year ago, their five-year-old daughter became ill and Fatma's son went into Jerusalem, carrying his West Bank ID card, to buy medicine for the girl. He was arrested for illegally being in Jerusalem and was held for six months, under Israel's occupation "law," which allows Israel to detain anyone for six-months without bringing charges. The day before Fatma's son was to be released, the Israelis imposed a second six-month sentence, and just two days before we met her, after the family had prepared a welcome-home celebration for him, her son was sentenced for a third six-month period.

While we sat somewhat mute, unable to react adequately to this (typical) example of Israel's nightmarish occupation, Fatma's nephew Yussuf struck a hopeful note. Noting that Nu'man, and the Palestinians in general, have neither airplanes nor tanks nor guns, he said they will fight non-violently. Nu'man's story is getting out, he said -- a Swedish film crew was in the village this very day -- and "maybe this will give us power."

This puts us sadly in mind of a video we recently saw of a group of teenage folk dancers from the Ibdaa Cultural Center at Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, in which one boy comments that foreigners come all the time to Dheisheh to help the Palestinians, but nothing ever changes. We could not share Yussuf's optimism. Nor did our friend Ahmad, who commented after we left, "It doesn't help if you're a lawyer like her son, or a professor. It only helps if you're a Jew." Harsh but true. Nu'man is not a threat to Israelis. It's just in the way -- in the way of expansion plans for Israeli Jews.

Hillary Clinton will most likely never hear about Nu'man. Even she would have some trouble justifying Nu'man's treatment as something that ensures the "safety and security" of Israelis, so she deliberately chose not to see it, not to see Palestine or Palestinians at all.

Cut Off in Qalqilya

If you're Jewish in Israel or Palestine, or an ambitious whistle-stopping American politician, it is easy not to see the wall. To see it figuratively, you have to be open-minded, a rare quality where seeing Palestinians is involved. To see the huge concrete structure literally, you have to be in Palestinian areas, in East Jerusalem or deeper in the West Bank, so not many Israelis or their political visitors see where the wall cuts a village off from its land, or runs down the middle of a busy commercial street, or cuts directly across a street, or winds through a residential neighborhood, looming right outside the front door of a private home. So hardly anyone except Palestinians and their friends truly knows about the wall. Where it comes near Israeli settlements, as in Gilo, Israelis are able to see it, but usually only on the settlement's outskirts. In the few places where the wall runs along Israel's border, attractive landscaping on Israel's side hides its ugliness from Israelis.

On the Israeli side of Qalqilya, for instance, the principal Palestinian city in the agricultural heart of the West Bank, the wall can barely be seen. Qalqilya sits adjacent to the Green Line, just inside the West Bank, and it used to be an agricultural and commercial center for the area, a place where both Israelis and Palestinians came to shop and do business. But the wall, erected here almost three years ago, encloses the city on three sides and most of the fourth, cutting it off completely from Israel, placing almost 2,000 acres of its land on the Israeli side, and leaving only one road out of the town, to the east. This road was closed except to permit holders until about a year ago. Now it is still controlled by Israeli soldiers and movement is restricted. Israelis can still not come to shop.

Last February, during the usually life-giving winter rainy season, the entire Qalqilya area flooded after seven consecutive days of rain because the concrete wall prevented runoff. Backed-up sewage caused by the wall created a further problem. According to the armistice agreement that established the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank in 1949, Israel provides an outlet to the sea for sewer water from the Qalqilya region. Because the wall has blocked the drainage channels, a system of gates was established to provide for runoff. These are controlled by the Israelis, but Israeli attention to the gates is at best spotty (as is also the case with the gates controlling farmers' access to their land), and during the period of heavy rains and floods, the gates went unmanned for three days. As a result, sewage mixed with flood waters, and an estimated 200 acres of land was polluted, causing a devastating crop loss for hundreds of farm families.

When we met with Qalqilya's deputy mayor, Hashim al-Masri, in September, he described an economically devastated city. Qalqilya once had three principal sources of income, now totally cut off or severely limited by the wall. Approximately 12,000 residents once worked inside Israel; now only about 300 sneak in to work illegally. The town was also an agricultural market center, selling fruits and vegetables to Israelis as well as Palestinians. Now 80 percent of this market has been lost because most of Qalqilya's land is on the Israeli side of the wall. Produce from the Qalqilya fields that ended up on Israel's side of the wall is now being sold all over the West Bank by Israelis, al-Masri said, with the result that what Qalqilya is still able to grow and sell goes very cheaply. Finally, the town was once a business and commercial center for both Israelis and Palestinians, with what al-Masri said was a business capacity more than three times what was needed for the town itself. Now less than 25 percent of that capacity is left. Israelis cannot get into the town, shops are closed, commerce is dying.

Al-Masri estimated that Qalqilya had lost more than 65 percent of its economy. Approximately 12 percent of the residents have left to move farther into the West Bank. The city's distress is evident in streets lined with closed shops, in a market area obviously not thriving, and in the prevalence of donkey carts used for ordinary transport by people unable any longer to afford cars.

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times visited Qalqilya in November, but his principal concern was not what the wall has done to Qalqilya -- he mentioned the "separation barrier" only in passing, as the only thing that separates Qalqilya from the Israeli town of Kfar Sava. He was more interested in the fact that al-Masri and his four fellow members of the city council are all members of Hamas and what this means for Israel. Hamas swept the local elections in June; al-Masri is serving as acting mayor because the mayor, another Hamas man, was elected while in an Israeli prison, where he has been languishing, without charges, for over three years.

"A lot of eyes are fixed on Qalqilya" because both Fatah and Israel are shocked at the Hamas victory, Erlanger wrote earnestly. He went out in search of ordinary Qalqilyans in the market who would discuss al-Masri's performance, and he found enough dissatisfaction with Hamas' restrictive rule to make an article. Erlanger himself was concerned about Hamas' attitude toward Israel, noting early in the article that Hamas "advocates Israel's destruction" and asking al-Masri about what he called the Hamas "commitment" to establishing a Palestinian state in all of Palestine and thereby destroying Israel. Wondering about the kind of threat Hamas might pose to Israel from a small town sitting besieged and helpless behind a massive concrete wall would seem to be a serious upending of reality, certainly out of proportion to any actual danger to Israel. But this was clearly Erlanger's principal concern; he seemed unable to conceive of an Israeli threat to the Palestinians. He mentioned nothing about the floods of February, or the jobs lost to the wall, or the fields left fallow, or the huge agricultural loss, or the general economic strangulation.

Another example, like that of Hillary Clinton, of not seeing the wall even when it and its consequences stare you in the face.

Bil'in: A Sequel

We wrote in September ("Travels in Palestine, Part One: Horror Story,") about meeting with the mayor in the small village of Bil'in; he is actually head of the village council, a man named Ahmad Issa Yassin. Bil'in has lost three-quarters of its land to the separation wall and has staged non-violent anti-wall protests every Friday since February, with the participation of hundreds of Palestinians from Bil'in and nearby villages, Israeli peace activists, and internationals. The protests are continuing even though almost no one in the West or the Western media sees these either, any more than they do in Gilo or Qalqilya. Israel's violent response to the peaceful protests also continues, also more or less unseen.

Steven Erlanger did finally record the protests for the New York Times in October, eight months after they had begun, but he managed to minimize the significance of the protests and of the village's loss of land to the wall. Calling the interplay between protesters and Israeli soldiers "almost joyful" and likening the confrontation to a kabuki dance, Erlanger emphasized that the Israeli military has backed off from its earlier confrontational mode and now only wants to "protect" the "barrier" from the protesters. He quoted an Israeli commander as saying, with a straight face, "We don't want to bother them in the village or the fields" -- as if the wall and the confiscation of the village's agricultural land that it entails are themselves no "bother." In a remarkable verbal circumlocution, Erlanger noted that the Israelis had become concerned that their earlier use of batons, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas against protesters "made it look as if" Israel was repressing dissent. Well, duh. Erlanger did not see fit to interview any Palestinians, not even village leader Yassin.

At about the time Erlanger was making excuses for them, the Israelis began resorting to middle-of-the-night raids to arrest and intimidate village residents. Erlanger did not see these either. Since October, several young men from the village have been seized in the nighttime raids and detained for various periods for "damaging the foundation" of the wall. Two of Ahmad Issa Yassin's nine children are among those arrested during multiple raids on Yassin's house in November. Both sons were among about a dozen fined $200 each and sentenced to four months in jail. One son is 28 years old, married with two children and a third on the way. The other is only 14. We met this boy, Abdullah, in September and thought him even younger -- a smiling, clean-cut boy, who is Yassin's youngest child. He is at Israel's notorious Ofer military detention center.

Bil'in's residents are continuing their struggle undeterred. Just before Christmas, they acquired a trailer and set it up on village land lying on the Israeli side of the wall, proclaiming it an "outpost" of Bil'in, much as wildcatting Israeli settlers establish settlement outposts on nearby hillsides and live there in trailer villages. Israeli soldiers immediately dismantled the Bil'in "outpost," using sledgehammers and a crane, but villagers replaced it with a tent and a few days later moved another trailer onto the same spot and built a small shed to mark their claim. Israeli soldiers removed this trailer too, but the shed remains for now, under threat of demolition.

When we visited him in September, Yassin pointed to his now-jailed son Abdullah and expressed his worry about the kind of future that lay ahead for his children and grandchildren, and for the future of an entire village being strangled by Israel. Yassin himself is without a job or a livelihood, having lost his permit to work in Israel when the intifada began in 2000 and now having lost his productive olive trees to the wall. We gave him a button carrying a quote from Howard Zinn: "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." Yassin was quite taken with the quote and asked if we had more of the buttons that he could pass out. "We are people who want a future to live in peace," he said. "We don't want war and blood and killing."

But Bil'in is in the way of Israel's plans, and in the West Bank that's all that counts. Until Israeli leaders and the American politicians who toady to them begin to see what is happening right before their eyes, begin to see the human lives that they and their occupations and their walls are destroying, nothing will change. Ahmad Issa Yassin's children will remain in jail.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.

They both can be reached at christison@counterpunch.org.

Participant Damon Lynch on Nonviolence Conference

2006-01-03T06:22:00.000+02:00

[editors note: conference photos coming soon - check out more of Damon's photos here: http://pbase.com/dflynch ]
All kinds of people are attracted to nonviolence -- community activists, friends of the very powerful, victims of violent conflict and oppression, soldiers, marginalized people, academics, non-governmental organization workers, politicians, teachers, religious authorities, students, the stubborn, skeptics and ordinary people doing sometimes extraordinary things. Expecting such diverse peoples to largely agree on the form of social action and body of thought that makes up nonviolence is perhaps a little naive. Among these folks there is plenty of disagreement as to what nonviolence is, let alone the best way of going about it. After all, the word itself describes not what it is, but what it is not. The conference Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance held in Bethlehem December 27-30, 2005 reflected the world's cacophony of opinions, principles and blind spots toward nonviolence. A rich variety of opinions, experiences, pains and dreams were shared. New possibilities were discussed. Despite their differences, it is fair to suggest that all conference participants were united by the common desire for a peaceful and just transformation of violent conflicts everywhere, especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

The conference was principally organized by Palestinians living in Bethlehem and abroad, with assistance from foreigners. This had the great benefit of ensuring that the conference was immersed in Palestinian experiences even as it drew upon international expertise. Palestinians made it clear that foreigners who believed their role was to preach the value of nonviolence to supposedly ignorant Palestinians were in the wrong place. Yet this did not mean that Palestinians were not challenged by the infusion of foreign ideas. An example of this was the presentation of Ms. Ingrid Newkirk on nonviolence toward the animal world and nature. Newkirk was brought to the conference by a Palestinian organiser precisely for this reason. She presented a series of ideas most listeners had not given much thought to -- animal rights. It was preaching in the best sense of the word. Her talk was interspersed with humour and premised on the notion that deep down we humans want to be a blessing instead of a curse on the rest of life, as my meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran liked to suggest. Her task was not easy: she had to get people suffering in a violent conflict to extend their compassion to animals. She wisely started out by connecting the issue of animal rights to the work people were already undertaking when she talked of the "single most basic problem facing all of us who work in nonviolence," which she identified as "can we persuade people to feel empathy for those they truly believe are inferior, and those they truly think are inconsequential to them. This is a very interesting exercise because it requires us to challenge our own ingrained prejudices even as the we challenge others to confront theirs." This immediately conveyed her respect for what Palestinian nonviolent practitioners have achieved, and allayed any possible concerns that she privileged her work as above that of others. At least one local middle aged Palestinian man was exuberant in his response, exclaiming loudly that he had never thought about such issues. The joy on his face conveyed how much he appreciated them. He said he was considering vegetarianism. Newkirk's wise approach reminded me of the observation of Tom Stransky that it is more popular with religious believers to know that their teachings are being purified rather than being changed. The same seems to apply for those who follow deeply held ideologies of any sort, whether they be political, social, economic, cultural or religious. It certainly applies to nonviolence.

The role of religion in nonviolent Palestinian resistance was a prominent theme and arguably attracted more attention than any other. The Palestinian Sheikh Tayser Rajab Bayoud Tamimi gave what many foreigners perceived as a controversial talk. Sheikh Tamimi is the Head of the High Legal Court and the Head of the Supreme Council for Religious Adjudication in Palestine. In other words, he is one of the most important Muslim figures in Palestine. In essence he claimed that Palestinians who have practised nonviolent resistance to military occupation and experienced significant Israeli violence in return have the right to resist violently. Given he was supposed to be talking about Palestinian nonviolence, this was a surprise to those of us who were not familiar with his ideas. It did not help that he idealized Islam even as he focused his discussion on Israel to the worst aspects of its occupation. Worse still, the two Christians alongside him on the panel spoke of the need for nonviolence, not more violence. All in all, for most of us this did not come across well. The conference organizers defended their decision to include him in the program. They argued that not only is he a critically important figure, but he represents the mainstream understanding of just war found not only in Islam here and abroad, but also in other religions like Christianity. While his advocacy of a just war approach was not shared by the conference, the organizers felt that including him made it more likely that he and those who follow him could be encouraged to incorporate nonviolence into their approach.

Most of us probably had little idea as to how wise the approach of including Sheikh Tamimi ended up being. Two days after his controversial talk, Sheikh Tamimi lead Friday prayers in the mosque at the village of Bilin, which has been the centre of largely nonviolent protests against the security wall / fence for many months now. These protests have involved Palestinians, Israelis, and foreigners who are outraged that the route of the wall means that the village is having close to half of its productive agricultural land taken without compensation or negotiation by the state. The security barrier blocks the farmers from their land. The land is being given to Jewish settlers in what appears to be little more than organized theft. It is no surprise that there has been vigorous opposition to this callous act inside the West Bank. Sometimes hundreds of Israelis from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere have come to join Palestinians. Unfortunately not all the Palestinians have been nonviolent -- some have at times thrown stones and the odd one has used a slingshot. These stones can cause serious injury and have blinded a soldier in Bilin. The soldiers have fought nonviolent protesters with vigorous beatings, noxious teargas, and so-called "rubber bullets"-- which in reality are metal balls surrounded by a hard plastic shell. They have used this approach against Palestinians and foreigners, but Israeli Jews as well . Against stone throwers, they have used live ammunition, although it is not clear to me whether they have been firing over the heads of the stone throwers or at them. Personally I think it is a great setback that the nonviolent protesters have not managed to convince the stone throwers to completely refrain -- ordinary Israelis would be horrified to see their young soldiers on television inflicting such a violence upon ordinary Palestinians, let alone fellow Israelis. Yet when soldiers can make the claim that they are under attack, it effectively and tragically frees them to use disproportionate and sometimes overwhelming violence in return.

Sheikh Tamimi returned from his leading Friday prayers in Bilin to unambiguously tell the conference that Palestinians should use nonviolence to resist occupation. Along with Priest Jacob Abu Sa'ada, the Melkite Priest for Bethlehem, he led us on a nonviolent protest against the security wall and against the military occupation of Palestinian territories. We marched through the streets of Bethlehem in the direction of the new Bethlehem checkpoint, which resembles an international border terminal. Palestinians stopped what they were doing to look at us marching. By the time we got to near the checkpoint there were as many as 450 people. We came up the hill to the massive wall and checkpoint and paused to briefly gather our strength and affirm our solidarity before proceeding to the entrance. Fortunately the presence of vehicles waiting to go through the checkpoint concealed us from the soldiers manning the entrance. Perhaps the soldier in the guard tower above us was absent or asleep, because he or she did not raise the alarm that hundreds of people were heading toward the checkpoint. Arm in arm, we simply walked through wall's entrance, much to the surprise of the soldiers. They tried to stop us but could not -- there was too many of us. There was no way in the minds of anyone that they could be justified to undertake drastic action like shooting us because we were completely peaceful. After walking through the entrance we continued on into the centre of the checkpoint's grounds. A lone soldier attempted to stop us by physically pushing us back and telling us we could not remain there. Again, it was futile. When he saw our determination he resorted to communicating with his superiors. He was heavily armed and was in full combat gear.

I recognized the soldier immediately, having come across him at the former Bethlehem checkpoint in June. One summer evening back then, I approached the checkpoint on the way from Jerusalem into Bethlehem at approximately 10:30 p.m. It was relatively dark, and despite much of the checkpoint was poorly lit, I could see the place was deserted apart from a single soldier. I assumed incorrectly I could ride my bicycle straight up to the spot where they check passports. I did this only to discover the soldier was aiming his high-powered weapon directly at me, ready to fire in an instant. When I arrived to where he was standing, he literally shouted in an emotional voice "if you don't want to get shot, stop where you are supposed to stop and wait till we call you." The next day I saw him and went to shake is hand, explaining that I did not realize my mistake. In the coming weeks I somewhat befriended him. It turns out he is of Russian origin and has been at the Bethlehem checkpoint and surrounding neighborhood for a couple of years. His role is sniper. He says that his problem (so-to-speak) is that his aim is highly accurate, and hence he has to be sure of what he is aiming at before he fires, because he will "certainly hit" the target. I asked him what he thought about Palestinians who were then able to bypass the checkpoint he manned by passing through the grounds of Tantur (they can no longer do that the new checkpoint). He said his "hands were tied", but if he had his way, he could solve the problem instantly. I asked him what he meant by this, hinting at his role as a sniper, but he did not want to go into detail.

I was not able to talk much with the sniper back in June and July -- he was a man of few words, around me at least. But when I saw him again during our nonviolent protest I asked him if he recognized me. He confirmed he did.

Sheikh Tamimi and Priest Abu Sa'ada led prayers while the soldiers watched us. They knew we were not going to undertake any aggressive actions, and nor were we going to pass through the checkpoint on the way to Jerusalem. We did not plan to occupy the checkpoint so after perhaps 10 or 15 minutes we left to go back to the Bethlehem side of the wall, where we congregated for another 10 minutes or so. There we confronted the soldiers again. Some protesters gave the soldiers flowers. A young foreign man got carried away and tried to lead a chant presumptuously saying "we will return your hate with love". Almost no one followed him. A French woman suggested he modify his chant to say "we will resist with love". He agreed. People then joined in on his chant. Sheikh Tamimi gave a emotional speech. He said "They are turning our lives into hell. We are calling for peace. We are taking to nonviolent methods to resist. The occupation is exercising repressive methods against the Palestinian people and against all the international solidarity groups. We thank you for your solidarity with us. Your solidarity is with justice and truth and freedom. In God's name and grace, freedom and truth will be victorious." Some of the protesters talked respectfully with the soldiers, and reported that one or two of the soldiers said that if they were not on duty, they too would have joined the protesters.

Many times I have passed through turnstiles, gates, hallways, x-ray machines and "welcome to Israel, welcome to the land of peace" posters in the checkpoint. I have seen the young soldiers again and again, many of whom look utterly bored by their mundane job. In the checkpoint we are all controlled by forces beyond our personal control. Therefore our protest felt like a joyous, spontaneous act of liberation from oppression. On the surface of things, we did not do much -- a few speeches and a reasonable turnout. But on a deeper level, we were pointing to the undeniable reality that another way -- a better way -- is possible on this land.

Report by Eileen Fleming: Conference concludes with solidarity march to the Wall

2005-12-31T23:23:00.000+02:00

The Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance conference closed with a peace-filled walk to The Wall which divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

The walk began at 4:00 PM near the Church of The Nativity, the recognized
place of the Prince of Peace's birth. Over two hundred global citizen;
Internationals, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians walked
in solidarity against the Israeli occupation and in support of The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.

We chanted and sang all along the way: "Shalom, Salaam, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem" and "We shall overcome."

By the time we reached the checkpoint many local residents had joined in and our numbers had swelled to over 400. The Israeli Defense Force was taken by surprise and we easily entered the compound and heads may soon roll as we breached their security: and we did it by nonviolent activism.

We joyfully and peacefully entered the compound before the IDF rolled back the thirty foot high gate and joined hands in a circle and prayed for peace and human rights led by Melkite and Orthodox Priests.

The soldiers immediately called for reinforcements and the line of jeeps extended all the way from Jerusalem to the Bethlehem checkpoint where we
stood in peace.

The morning of 12/30/05 began with the Reverend Naim Ateek, Founder and Director of SABEEL Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem who clearly underscored the fact that we, who claim to be Christians are not, unless we promote nonviolence and equal human rights.

In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and thus, radical social justice outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. The Prince of Peace's true teachings were reinterpreted to justify warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted the true message Christ modeled and taught: You must love, you must forgive, you must bless those who curse, hate and revile you.

Christ taught that evil can be opposed without being mirrored, and that the cycle of a "tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye", will never bring peace and justice.

Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other.

St. Paul taught that the only way to resist evil is with good. Clement, Tertillian, Polycarp and every other early Church Father taught that violence is a contradiction of what Christianity is all about.

Within 100 years that Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began. Augustine was the first Church Father to speak about the concept of a Just War. The Church relaxed and negated the true teaching of Christ to justify war and thus: wrong became right.

There have always been those Christians who spoke out against this corruption of scripture and they have been ignored, reviled, rejected, laughed at, persecuted and maligned. There have always been Christians who never abandoned the true teachings, such as the Quakers, Mennonites, some Catholics and Protestants who have been faithful witnesses to Christ.

I have had the opportunity this past week to meet many of them and they fill me with hope that as greater numbers of global citizens come together in solidarity with The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which America and Israel have affirmed, then we will find the way to challenge and remedy the wrongs committed by those who hold political power to do right.

Gila Svirsky, an Israeli Jew and activist with The Coalition of Women for Peace stated "Most Israeli's today want to end the occupation [but] talking about the suffering of others does not work here. What is working is education that focuses on Israeli self interest and Reality Tours. This past year over 3,500 Israelis and two groups of soldiers took the tour to see the Wall up close and sat in Palestinian homes and had coffee with them. When they saw how parents interacted with their kids it was the best wake up call...self-interest considers the fact that over 3.5 billion dollars a year goes to continue the occupation and that Israel is considered a pariah by
the rest of the world...When Israelis claim the higher ground and portray themselves as victims the rug is pulled out from underneath them when Palestinians use nonviolent resistance."

Jeff Halper, an American Jew is the Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD: The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org

Jeff looks like a cross between Jerry Garcia and Santa Claus and grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota and actually knew Bob Dylan when he was still Bob Zimmerman.

Jeff told me that there was something about Israel that spoke to him and so he moved from the USA in 1973 and in 1997 established ICAHD.

"It was at the time when the Oslo peace plan collapsed and the occupation reasserted itself. Many Israeli peace activists began asking Palestinians what the best way to engage with each other was and the answer was blowing in the wind: 'STOP the home demolitions!'

"Since 1967 the Israeli government has destroyed over 2,000 Palestinian homes. 95% of the cases have nothing to do with security. All these homes are on Palestinian private property. The Israeli government will not grant permits for them to build on their own land, and in reality are quietly transferring the Palestinians administratively from the land. They make conditions so intolerable that the Palestinians give up and leave and this is exactly what they are after. Not only do the Palestinians receive no warning when their homes are to be destroyed they are fined $1, 500.00!

"I'll get a call at 5 AM from a Palestinian telling me the bulldozers have arrived and we activists go out and engage in civil disobedience by standing up to the bulldozers.

"We also raise funds to rebuild these homes right where they had been before. The reasons for the demolitions are: for The Wall, to establish illegal settlements, build roads and because the Israeli government wants to keep Palestinians confined to the islands [areas A and B] in the West Bank and so Palestinian land remains under the control of the Israeli government."

American Methodists have contributed $50,000 to rebuild homes and USA Presbyterians, Mennonites and Quakers all support the activities of ICAHD.

Jeff can no longer count how many times he had been arrested and sentenced to community service. His eyes sparkle while he tells me, "When I tell the judge I am serving the community they just don't get it!"

"The Israeli government just does not want to take responsibility and the USA government ignores the situation. Do you know why Israel does not want to become America's 51st state? Because then they would only have two senators!"

Rev. Ateek stated, "The God of war, violence, oppression and terror must be rejected. Authentic Christianity is nonviolent and is all about peace, justice and liberation."

The walls we construct in our minds must fall before The Walls men build to divide ever can.

http://www.wearewideawake.org

Eileen Fleming
In Israel & Palestine
phone -972528040979 until 1/06/06

Conference over - heading to Ramallah

2005-12-31T10:52:00.000+02:00

I made the mistake yestearday of spending a long time writing a post online. When we lost a power, I lost my post. The Conference ended yesterday with a march and vigil at the wall and the big Bethlehem checkpoint. I hope someone else will write about it.

Now, I'm about to leave Bethlehem with Tendor and Fred (who staffs the Nonviolence International office for Southeast Asia in the Phillipines) to go to Ramallah. There, we'll hopefully meet up with some new friends and scout out some nightlife for New Year's eve.

I really hope, now that the conference is over and participants are getting home, settling back into their routines, that some people might post here on the blog. I have a head spinning with ideas and can only imagine that everyone else does as well. When I find a bit more time, I will sit down and post my thoughts on the conference. It was an amazing experience, and overwhlmingly positive. Still, I also have many critiques and disappointments I wish to share, with nothing but hope that future gatherings of this sort will be better and further strengthen the Palestinian cause and movements for feedom and social justice everywhere.

Peace to you all. Happy New Year. Talk to you in 2006.
-Han Shan

Seven Pillars of Wisdom - global peace conference in Wadi Rum, Jordan

2005-12-30T17:25:00.000+02:00

The natural land formations at Wadi Rum, Jordan, a site made famous by the

Lawrence of Arabia movie, are locally called The Seven Pillars of Wisdom,

now site of a proposed global peace conference there for 7 days including

the UN recognized annual spring equinox Earth Day, coincidentally also

Persian/Iranian New Year’s Day, March 20, 2006, starting Einstein's birthday

March 14, 2006? - Convener, Dr. David Leighton - Peacewalk.2005@gmail.com

Michigan Peace Team

2005-12-29T11:11:00.000+02:00

Michigan Peace Team (MPT) had hoped to have a display table at the conference. Yet, alas, the materials are in luggage that did not arrive with the MPT members who are attending. Please check out the work of MPT (both US domestic and international work) as well as the training program used by MPT.
See www.michiganpeaceteam.org
Feel free to contact MPT at michiganpeaceteam@comcast.net.

Gandhi was successful because...

2005-12-29T06:41:00.000+02:00

"...he saw the beauty and the soul of the British and spoke to their highest. When more activists are able to do this, on both sides, a true peace will be made. It is what the world is yearning for and I don't believe piecemeal efforts that focus blame and shame on either side will result in anything but more violence."

-- Eryn J. Kalish, Compassionate Listening Project

http://www.compassionatelistening.org

First full day (and Tendor turned 26!)

2005-12-29T00:20:00.000+02:00

Having successfully recovered from our jet lag (after a nap), we got up and walked down Manger Street to enjoy a couple beers and some food in a restaurant filled with sweet-smelling hookah smoke. We chatted about the workshops, people we've talked to over meals, our impressions of the conference so far. Casually, Tendor mentioned, "I turned 26 today." Damn, I forgot entirely and missed the chance to embarrass him in the customary manner. Well, I think we'll just roll it together with New Year's Eve and celebrate properly in a few days.

Sitting there in the dark and smoky room in the back of the "Coffee & Restaurant" restaurant, we watched the Arabic pop music videos on the big screen TV for a while before we became engrossed in conversation about the conference, the conflict, and the Tibet movement. After we finished eating, we noticed that there was a movie playing now. Wait, I've seen this. Brad Pitt, lookin' handsome, an exotic locale, and, um Tibetans. What?! Yep - Seven Years in Tibet, with Arabic subtitles below. Now, that's just strange.

The first day of the conference was good - I feel like I haven't entirely digested it but I learned a number of important little things today: in Arabic, the term used most often for "nonviolent struggle" translates to "mass public resistance." Since 1967, there have been 650,000 (!!) arrests of Palestinians by Israeli police and security forces. -according to medical doctor and admired Palestinian democracy activist and civil society leader Mustafa Bhargouti

"Israel's Apartheid Wall is severing Bethlehem from its twin city of Jerusalem, severing family, social and economic links vital to the Palestinian community." -Hind Khoury, Palestinian Authority Minister of State for Jerusalem Affairs. She went on to say that the wall is excluding 100,00 Palestinian [official, I.D.-carrying] Jerusalemites, and including 200,000 recentIsraeli settlers.

... and that was just a small piece of the morning panel, which was focused on Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Tomorrow, while the Palestinian struggle will remain a subtext, the focus will broaden. In fact, Tendor will represent Tibet on a panel about peoples under occupation, along with an activist from Western Sahara (occupied by Morocco) and Iraq (do I need to say?)

In the afternoon, I attended a workshop called People Power: How to Wage Strategic Nonviolent Struggle with Shaazka Beyerle from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and Michael Beer from Nonviolence International, both in Washington DC. I think of ICNC primarily as the organization that released the amazing documentary film Bringing Down a Dictator about the Serbian youth movement Otpor and the popular Serbia uprising that toppled Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

The workshop owed a lot to the work of Gene Sharp who, if Gandhi was the Yoda of Nonviolent Resistance, is at least the Obi-Wan Kenobi of it. For some of my friends who know my direct action trainings but don't know the eminent Mr. Sharp, he's the guy who assembled the "198 Methods of Nonviolent Action" that I like to pass out when giving tactical trainings. I just recently picked up his newest book "Waging Nonviolent Struggle" - not a compilation but its 500+ pages brings together his work from numerous books and I'm looking forward to reading it and sharing it.

I've managed to corner the poor guy a handful of times and he has been extremely gracious. Of course, I'm sure he is a very nice guy but I think it has something to do with the fact that we got an e-mail introduction before we came from Tendor's dad who lives in Boston and has worked with Gene there. In fact, in the Acknowledgements of the new book, he says it's a "major expansion of my earlier book The Power and Practice of Nonviolent Struggle, translated into Tibetan by Pema Tsewang"... who is Tendor's dad.

Anyway, after much pestering, his lovely colleague Jamila and he have agreed to find some time for a meal, so we can pick his [giant] brain and give them an update on the state of the Tibetan struggle. He is certainly acquainted with it but some time has passed since his trainings with Tibetan Government in Exile leadership... four different sessions in Delhi, Dharamsala and elsewhere apparently.

Okay, again it's late and I should be hitting the sack so I'm fresh for another big day. Salaam, Shalom, Peace to everyone.

-Han Shan
Bethlehem

Eileen Fleming on the first day of the conference and detained peace activists

2005-12-28T23:36:00.000+02:00

While members of Hamas attended the historic and first Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance Conference in Bethlehem, Ghandian activists from India and many internationals were denied Visas by the Israeli government.

Many Israeli Jews were denied permission to cross the checkpoint into the little town and occupied territory of Bethlehem too. Three Internationals were sent home December 28, 2005 after spending Christmas in detention.

The three arrived on December 20, 2005 at Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and were handcuffed, interrogated for three hours, denied food and water for nine, and one ended up in the hospital.

Attorney Gaby Lasky reported that 34-year old Vittorio Arrigoni "was injured when Israeli authorities tried to deport him and two other detained UK residents from South Africa and Australia by force." Lasky added that the authorities failed to notify her or the consulate of Vittorio's injury and originally instructed the guards not to allow the three detainess to communicate with their attorney or concilate representatives. Vittoria was returned to detention the following day. [Dec. 26, 2005 Press release ISM Media Alerts]

All three had previously been international observers in the Palestinian territories. All are members of Access for Peace in the Middle East, a nonviolent pressure group that challenges the criminalization of peace builders and the deliberate isolation of Palestinians from international observation and assistance. Access for Peace is supported by Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Nonviolence International, and European Jews for a Just Peace.

UK-based South African, Robin Horsell who was detained stated, "Israel gives spurious grounds for deportation or refusal of entry. The real reason is our support for HUMAN RIGHTS and JUSTICE."

Sponsors of the conference, Holy Land Trust issued the following statement: "The recent detention of the three peace campaigners, traveling to the International Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem, demonstrates Israel's fear of groups and individuals that are genuiely committed to nonviolent approaches to resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine."

Holy Land Trust is a Palestinian non profit organization founded in Bethlehem in 1998 with the aim of strengthening, encouraging and improving the community by working with children, families, and NGO's by developing nonviolent resistance approaches to end the occupation by peaceful means. [ http://www.holylandtrust.org/]

Dr. Mubarak Awad, Adjunct Profressdor at the American University in Washington, DC, Founder of Nonviolence International, a well renowned expert in the field of nonviolent strategic action and a Keynote speaker at the conference, stated that: "Nonviolence is an international movement throughout the world and solidarity is our most powerful tool...President Bush is the first American President to state loud and clear that there should be a Palestinian state. The Balfour Declaration [instituted by the Bristish Government in 1917 favored the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine but failed to mention the future of the native/indigenous Arab inhabitants of Palestine.] gave Israel a state. Because the British stated loud and clear that Israel should become a state a Jewish state was established. President Bush stated loud and clear in the Road Map that Palestine should be a state [as of 2005]. Everyone agreed with the Road Map, let's do it!.. Recent polls of Israelis confirm that 70% of them want a Palestinian state... Peace needs bridges not walls...[and] human rights exist as long as we practice them. When we don't practice our rights we lose them."

A Palestinian high school student attending the conference told this reporter that: "I think one day Israel will have to forgive herself for what she has done to us."
Godspeed on that.

-Eileen Fleming
reporting from the little town and occupied territory of Bethlehem. Read more on the WAWA Blog:http://www.wearewideawake.org

Wanting to connect with youth organizations in Palestine

2005-12-28T17:11:00.000+02:00

HI everyone, just to say hi to all especially those at the conference. I am a youth and community worker in england and would really like to make contact with youth organisations in palestine with a view to building links between them and young people in Leicester, England. If anyone knows of any group or groups that would welcome this please let me know.

Thanks,
Dawn

[Moderator's note: leave a comment for Dawn below]

Check out the Cal Peace Power Blog

2005-12-28T15:41:00.000+02:00

Matthew Taylor from Berkeley's Journal of Principled Nonviolence and Conflict Resolution is blogging regularly from the conference. Check it out:

http://calpeacepower.org/blog/celebratingnv.htm

celebrating possibility

2005-12-27T23:50:00.000+02:00

When I heard the governer of the Bethlehem district remark tonight that there is good anger and there is bad anger, and good anger is that which inspires a person to wage a nonviolent struggle against injustice.... I thought this was a wisdom that I can bring back to my own troubled homeland of Tibet, which has been under Chinese occupation since 1949.
I am a newcomer or a freshman to the Palestine issue. I have come to this conference (with my colleague Han) knowing full well that my contribution here would be small compared to what I would learn by being in the midst of these courageous people who have congregated in Bethlehem to explore and discuss - and rededicate themselves to - Nonviolent Resistance. I look forward to tomorrow...and the day after tomorrow...and the day after...because after tonight I believe that peace and freedom are possible in this most troubled of lands.

Tendor, Students for a Free Tibet

El Al took our laptops but we made it to Bethlehem

2005-12-27T22:26:00.000+02:00

My colleague Tendor and I got off to such a good start... got on the road for JFK airport with lots of time to spare. We were both hungry and looking forward to getting food and maybe a beer since we were ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately, El Al, the Israeli National Airline, had different plans for us. These were set in motion as soon as I answered "um, Bethlehem" to the question, "where are you going in Israel?"

First, we were separated and asked repeatedly why we were going to Bethlehem, who we were visiting, "what kind of Nonviolence Conference" and so on. The fact that we were going as representatives of the Tibetan cause didn't make a difference. Our bags were taken from us before we were ever notified that we were being singled out (though, ahem, it was pretty obvious right away). They told us they were going to have to take our laptops and that they would send them along after us... on a later flight. "We'll deliver them right to your hotel tomorrow."

Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled at the prospect. I argued and spoke to a series of higher-up security supervisors - none of whom gave me any indication as to why we were being handled in this way (again, abvious but still...). Eager to get going and with the impression that they were ultimately going to let us on the plane, we compromised.

"Fine, we won't take the laptops, we'll leave them here with the Airport Authority."

"Sorry, they are now in our possession and we can't give them back." I had the impression that they would have kept them and shipped them back to our respective apartments in New York if we had chosen not to fly yesterday. Bastards. Finally, we said we would need to use them - I wanted to close things up and turn it off. "Sure, you can use our office - follow us."

And so we did, into an office where they demanded we empty our bags, take off our jackets, shoes, belts. They patted us down thoroughly and had us sit there for an hour. I guess we "passed" because we were escorted back upstairs and allowed to use our laptops for a moment. Of course, there was El Al security leaning over my damn shoulder while I'm trying to gather the details from my email. Grrr.

They took our laptops. We shut them down and they need a password to boot up but they have plenty of time to simply remove and copy the entire hard disk. Of course, we have nothing to hide but you know, I just don't like helping tyrannical apartheid governments gather intelligence on nonviolent activists.

Finally, we were handed back our carry-ons, everything in a jumble, mindlessly shoved back in. At the last possible moment, their harrassment running out of time, we were escorted all the way through security and down to the plane. There, the young security guy handed another security woman (the first person I spoke with) some sort of form pertaining to us and quietly said something I didn't understand. I joked to the guy, "so that means free drinks and preferential treatment for all our trouble, right?" to which an Israeli man behind us commented with a grin, "you obviously don't speak Hebrew." Ha! Heh heh. Heh. Uh, yeah, great.

Not content with leaving it at that, he walked us all the way to our seats - the very last row on the plane with just two seats. Really.

Then, on the 11-hour flight, while noone "mistreated" us, I had the distinct impression that we were treated rudely by the flight attendants and stared at by a number of fellow passengers. I may have simply been paranoid but I may have also had good reason.

Ultimately, we still don't have our laptops but we made it off the plane, out of Ben-Gurion Airport, out of Tel Aviv and all the way to Bethlehem in time for the opening reception. We got dropped off by the bus on the outskirts of Jerusalem and took a cab the rest of the way in. We didn't have to pass through any checkpoints but we already had our privileged play-experience with living under occupation in Israel's apparently sovereign territory inside JFK airport!

The opening reception was nice, with dinner and a mood-setting program. Among other inspiring speakers, The Mayor of Bethlehem Victor Batarseh began, "Welcome to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. May we also declare him the Prince of Nonviolence as he dedicated his life to confronting injustice and oppression using nonviolent means." The reception finished with a rousing Christmas performance by a group of Palestinian Folk Dancers from Nazareth.

Now, I'm sitting next to Tendor who is also typing away on a computer here at the Casa Nova Hotel. We're both tired but so inspired and overwhelmed to be here no more than 50 yards from Manger Square in a building that literally shares a wall with the Church of the Nativity where the newly-dubbed Prince of Nonviolence was born a couple thousand years and a couple days ago.

-Han Shan

Conference protests Israeli restrictions on attendees

2005-12-27T09:52:00.000+02:00

PRESS ADVISORY - For Immediate Release (December 27, 2005)

The Israeli Government Sabotaging International Nonviolence Conference by Denying Entry to Attendees

Bethlehem - Holy Land Trust and Nonviolence International invite you to attend a media event at the ‘Celebrating Nonviolence Conference’ Wednesday December 28, 2005 from 11:30- 13:15 at the Terra Sancta College near Manger Square in Bethlehem, Palestine.

International and Israeli Activists Not Allowed Entry to Nonviolence Conference:
Four international peace workers traveling to participate in the nonviolence conference were denied entry to Israel and Palestine at Ben Gurion airport in Tel-Aviv. The activists, Australian Shareen Locke, Italian Vittorio Arrigoni, Scotlander Theresa McDermott and South African Robin Horsell were arrested and forced to spend the Christmas holidays in jail. They have decided to take action and challenge the right of the Israeli legal system to prevent peace activists from reaching the Palestinian Territories. Three will appear in Tel Aviv District Court at 2 pm today.

Four guest speakers: Dr. Asna Husin from Indonesia, Christine Wandera from Kenya, Giorgi Meladze from Georgia and Dr. N. Radhakrisnan from India were also effectively denied visas to enter Palestine to attend and speak in the international nonviolence conference.

Many Israeli human rights activists are also being denied entry to Bethlehem and cannot participate in the conference.

Highly renowned activists and lawyers will be speaking at the press conference including: Michael Beer, Sami Awad, Johnathan Kuttab, and others.

###

For more information please contact: Miral G. Rizek , (Media Coordinator)
Tel: +970 2 2765930
Fax: +970 2 2765931
Mobile: +972 546 509 546
MIRs: 12* 25730 or 0577 865 765
E-mail address: miral@holylandtrust.org
Conference Website: http://www.celebratingnv.org/

-- Michael Beer Director Nonviolence International +1 202 244 0951 www.nonviolenceinternational.net

I wish I could be there and send warm greetings...

2005-12-26T22:19:00.000+02:00

However, I am participating in the conference in the sense that my film, Walking Rainbow, is being shown in the film festival. I'd like to request feedback from those who see the film.

In peace,
Markley Morris

555 Moscow Street
San Francisco, CA 94112
415-586-1782

Report: Christmas Peacewalk from Bethlehem to Jerusalem

2005-12-26T21:04:00.000+02:00

December 26, 2005
An excerpt from Eileen Fleming's report on the We Are Wide Awake website:

Christmas Day was the most unusual and surreal day I have had since I have been here. The rains came down heavy at 6am and yet 12 thoughtful, committed citizens of the world gathered at the Church of The Nativity to pray in solidarity for PEACE and that all the children of the world would live in a culture of non-violence.

People ask me how could walking for peace do anything for peace and I have responded that walking and praying are humble acts that connect us to God and Nature. And that prayer is often all one can do, when one desires to DO SOMETHING to change the world.

Christ spread his revolutionary message of social justice beginning with 12 imperfect people and the world was never the same. The 12 of us who gathered yesterday reminded me of them. By the end of the walk our numbers had doubled and so now I imagine possibilities for the future...

...We attracted some attention from security and tourists. We ended up at [Peacewalker] Ibrahim's for Christmas lunch prepared and served by Rainbow People from Israel, Germany, France and Massachusetts. Eliyahou broke the bread, gave thanks for everything and it was the holiest/wholiest Christmas communion I ever had, for I was a part of a diverse community united in acceptance and love for the other.

Read the rest of the posting and more here>>

http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/jerusalem.html

Appeal from Peace Activist Detained by Israeli Authorities

2005-12-26T09:39:00.000+02:00

My Name is Theresa McDermott. I came to Israel/Palestine to attend the Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance Conference in Bethlehem. On arrival at Ben Gurion Airport at 5am on 25th December I was refused entry and detained. I am currently resisting deportation along with other peace activists who are also trying to attend the conference in the hope that our legal appeals against our refusal will be successful.

I am committed to peaceful, nonviolent support for the Palestinian people as they try to live as normally as possible under occupation.

Could you please support me by e-mailing, faxing or calling your MP, MSP and the Israeli Ministry of Interior.
Minister Mr. Avrahaam Poraz: sar@moin.gov.il
Director Mr. Mordechay Mordechay: mankal@moin.gov.il
Spokesperson Ms. Tova Ellinson: dover@moin.gov.il
Public Relations Ms. Nechama Pluga-Zecharia: pniot@moin.gov.il

Please ask for an explanation for my detention and also the detention of other peace activists trying to attend this conference.

Thank you very much.
-Theresa McDermott

New & Improved Celebrating NV Blog

2005-12-24T22:09:00.000+02:00

Okay, so you're probably looking at this for the first time... but we've just made some improvements. On the right, you'll see the latest photos from the "CelebratingNV" Flickr feed. Soon, I hope many attendees of the conference will post their (your) own photos. If you're attending the conference, you'll hear more about how to do this soon. A big thank-you and shout-out to Nate Freitas for his help in getting it all going... Nathan is a Board member of Students for a Free Tibet and an at-large technology activist who serves movements for social justice. Check him out at http://nathan.freitas.net
Salaam, Shalom, Peace.
-Han Shan, New York

Welcome to the Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance BLOG

2005-12-23T21:13:00.000+02:00

Greetings. My name is Han Shan and I work at the Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) international headquarters in New York City. I am very much looking forward to the International Nonviolence Conference next week in Bethlehem. I would like to offer some simple technological tools such as blogging and digital photography [see how SFT uses blogs] to help the participants of this historic gathering to tell their stories, share their views and expand the dialogue beyond the conference venue. If you would like to help with this project in any way, e-mail me. Thank you and watch for additions, changes, updates, etc. soon.

Want to know how to join the discussion?

2005-12-22T22:16:00.000+02:00

If you are a participant in the International Nonviolence Conference and would like to join the dialogue by posting to this blog, please e-mail the Blog Moderator and I will reply to your email with the simple instructions (please make sure to include your name). Thank you!