Additionally, AFP reports that there will be finalization of a Palestinian unity government by June 6. Developments in the region are swift and serious.
Greetings to you this U.S. Memorial Day. In addition to remembering those whose lives have been lost defending the United States, this is an important day to recognize “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42). In these days after a series of speeches on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, those things again seem hidden from our eyes.
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu
We are in a rapidly changing diplomatic climate. The “Arab Spring” has upset the balance of known relationships in the Middle East. From a “realist” foreign policy perspective, this is a time for reassessing the value of long-standing and emerging allies while measuring known and emerging threats to U.S. economic and national security interests. In such a climate, recognizing and promoting “the things that make for peace” becomes even more challenging.
Every relationship in the region is up for negotiation. This includes the U.S. relationship with the State of Israel and the Palestinian people. Many are questioning the proposition that the only path to peace is through a U.S.-controlled peace process. These questions are beginning to change minds. Why else would Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, publish an article in Foreign Policy calling Israel a “partner par excellence” and arguing that “America needs Israel now more than ever”?
Instead of taking the opportunity to challenge the policies of the State of Israel, the Obama Administration has decided to double down on its traditional, unwavering support. The February U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements pushed one stack of chips into the center of the table. The recent speeches by President Obama (at the State Department and before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) offered up another.
But why? Why is this moment in history passing without a significant challenge to the patently illegal practices of the State of Israel in the territories it has occupied since 1967? To answer this question, foreign policy calculations must be taken into account. But that is not sufficient. There is something unique to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which constrains American foreign policy at this critical juncture: the peace process itself.
The plot is complicated. Luckily, George Mitchell, the Obama Administration’s former U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, recently provided a “Cliff’s Notes” synopsis of the Obama Administration’s current approach to Israel and Palestine. In his May 26 interview with Charlie Rose, Mitchell provided the key to understanding the logic informing current realities, at least from the U.S. perspective. The upshot: it’s all about Israel.
Mitchell carefully explained that President Obama’s recent speech took place within the context of both the Arab Spring and Palestinian efforts to receive recognition as a state in September through the UN General Assembly. As Mitchell put it bluntly: “President Obama is trying to head off a train wreck at the UN in September.” The rest of the interview makes it clear that the disastrous effects of Palestinian efforts at the UN will be visited not on the Palestinians, but on the United States and the State of Israel.
Graphic: Foreign Policy Magazine
During the interview, Mitchell mentioned three threats to the State of Israel: 1) demographic realities which threaten either the democratic or Jewish nature of the state; 2) rapid developments in weapons technology, especially missiles; and 3) the increasing isolation of the State of Israel on the international scene. He mentions that this international isolation is problematic for the United States as well. Ambassador Oren’s proud claim that Israel is the “ultimate ally” of the United States comes with consequences.
At the same time President Obama enunciates the principles of self-determination for others in the region, the United States is putting its full effort into derailing Palestinian progress toward September. In addition to providing incentives for Palestinians to abandon this path and return to the negotiating table, Mitchell shared that, diplomatically, the administration is seeking to persuade other countries to not support the effort. Because positive recognition through the UN would “only deepen the crisis from Israel’s standpoint,” the Obama Administration’s efforts have “one objective: making it more likely we can get a peace agreement—a meaningful, sustainable peace—than these other actions can ultimately provide.”
And there it is. The potential “train wreck at the UN in September” will be most damaging to Israel, to the United States, and, most fatally, to the “peace process” itself. Nevertheless, the highest goal of the Obama Administration relative to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be preservation of the process. Only a process managed by the United States, for which Israel claims to be an “ultimate ally,” can sufficiently assuage Israel’s sense of “crisis.”
One can forgive Palestinian leaders for not accepting the premise that such a process will lead to an agreement which honors the best interests of their people. Their incremental move away from this slanted negotiation table toward the broad multilateralism of the United Nations—described by those tending to the peace process as an act of brazen unilateralism—is at least reasonable. As Mitchell said, “Salaam Fayyad is a truly outstanding leader.”
The problem we are facing is a lack of imagination of what comes next, after the current peace process is recognized to have ended. It ended, in fact, with the U.S. veto in February, forcing Palestinians to decisively seek another path. Even if Palestinian efforts toward September are successfully forestalled, what happens after the train wreck finally occurs and the present U.S.-Israeli goals of extending hegemony and projecting power are exposed as irreconcilable with the goal of delivering sustainable peace?
Instead of recognizing the things that make for peace for Israel and Palestine, the United States remains locked in a struggle to preserve its control of a peace process that appears to have run its course. U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is caught in a feedback loop, the content of which is less and less convincing to the international community. It is time for the United States to finally recognize “the things that make for peace” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and work toward a Palestinian state that is just as viable as any of its neighbors. If U.S. policy is formed by a government of its people, that recognition is up to you.
Rev. Robert O. Smith, Ph.D.
Coordinator, Peace Not Walls initiative of the ELCA
The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East (NILI), a high level group of religious leaders of Christians, Muslims and Jews, which includes the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, the presiding bishop of the ELCA, is urging President Obama to visit Jerusalem and re-start peace talks now. They wrote a letter and an ad to appear this week. The ad states:
We are Jewish, Christian and Muslim national religious leaders united in support of strong U.S. leadership for a two-state solution before it is too late.
We urge you to visit Jerusalem and the region soon to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restart negotiations focused on the principles and ideas in the Israeli Peace Initiative, the earlier Arab Peace Initiative and the Geneva Accord.
We believe the United States, in coordination with the Quartet, should continue to respond carefully to the new Palestinian unity agreement and not act precipitously to cut off aid to the Palestinians. The unity government must commit itself to rejecting violence and negotiating a two-state peace agreement with Israel.
We pledge our prayers and public support for active, fair and firm U.S. leadership for peace and we will urge Congress to support this effort.
NILI supports a two-state solution to the conflict that brings security and recognition to Israel and establishes a viable and independent state for the Palestinians—two states living side by side in peace and security—with peace agreements between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.
President Obama gave a long-awaited speech on the Middle East on Thursday, May 19, that brought immedate criticism from pro-Israeli groups and GOP presidential hopefuls. Nothing he said was really new except perhaps that Palestine should have an international border with Jordan, which is in conflict with Israel’s plan to have a militarized buffer zone between Jordan and Israel. The rest of the speech was, by some standards, very pro-Israeli, emphasizing our shared values and long-term commitment to Israel and its security. Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, responded with a number of things he wanted to push President Obama on, calling the 1967 borders “indefensible.”
The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, in a statement responding to the president’s speech, said it resonated with ELCA statements and values. In the statement, Bishop Hanson also advocated for a shared Jerusalem as the capital of both states with equal access to all Christians, Muslims and Jews, and affirmed: “the right to self-determination so that the God-given dignity of all people is respected and recognized. This principle, though, must be fully realized everywhere, without exception, so that peace, justice and development will be possible.”
According to an ELCA press release, “In addition to his statement, Hanson was among 29 Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders who sent a letter to Obama today offering support for ‘strong, sustained U.S. leadership, in coordination with the Quartet, to press for agreement on a two-state peace agreement before it is too late.’ The religious leaders urged Obama to visit Jerusalem and the region soon to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restart negotiations.
Here are two of the many analysis articles, add your favorite in the comments.
What’s really behind harsh GOP responses to Obama’s Middle East speech? –
The Christian Science Monitor
Obama Gets Real on Israel – Daniel Levy, The American Prospect
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in an op-ed in the New York Times, talks about the importance and international legitimacy of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu takes issue with him and his account of history. President Abbas does leave out the detail that the Arabs did reject the UN partition plan on the basis that it gave half of the land to the Jewish state when only a fraction of the land was owned by Jewish people.
May 15, the day Israelis and most of the world celebrate the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 every year, is a painful day for Palestinians, whose experience of that day and history is very different from the Israeli history. Popular news media run stories on this day about Palestinian violence and anger at the creation of Israel, yet they present no context for the situation. Indeed, this year protests saw the Israelis killing 12 people near the borders and a youth in Jerusalem, who was most likely shot by a settler group that has been evicted by the Israelis themselves for illegally occupying their house in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. Hundreds more were wounded or detained in various protests all throughout the West Bank.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm7dMhE80dw
In popular news media, there is often little explanation that the Palestinians are grieving the past and lamenting the present, where to this day the longest military occupation in history is still going strong. The reality of what happened in the Holy Land in 1947-48 – and well before – is sharply different for Palestinians than for Israelis. For Palestinians, this is the Nakba – the catastrophe – when between 700,000 and 800,000 people were expelled from their homes and over 500 villages were destroyed.
Most Americans know the story as it was portrated in the movie Exodus by Leon Uris starring Paul Neuman, where it looks like the little country of Israel was inexplicably attacked when it declared itself a state by 5 large Arab nations who had many more men and weapons than Israel. More and more Israeli historians point to a very different reality. Using material from Israel’s archives, they say Israeli paramilitary groups (some deemed terrorist by the British, all very well-armed) targeted many villages, indeed even carried out massacres and violent expulsions, so that the people would flee. Disorganized action by these Arab countries didn’t offer much effective resistance and they were outnumbered and outgunned. This is according to some new Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe, who also says that about half of the refugees and half of the villages were destroyed before the creation of the state of Israel was even declared.
Much of the “violence” of this day is in fact non-violent protest and civil disobedience that is met by Israeli tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and detention of those participating. Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a well-known non-violent peace protester, has been detained and is still in prison as of this writing.
It is also noteworthy that the Israeli government just passed a law that makes discussing the Nakba (which they say negates the reality of the Jewish state) cause for threatening a public organization’s funding. While the first one, which made it a crime to mention the word Nakba, only passed on part of the Parliament, a milder version passed that says this: “any body that is funded by the state, or a public institute that is supported by the state, will be barred from allocating money to activity that involves the negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people; the negation of the state’s democratic character; support for armed struggle, or terror acts by an enemy or a terror organization against the state of Israel; incitement to racism, violence and terror and dishonoring the national flag or the national symbol.”
See one Israeli organization defying this law.
Part two of the video on the Nakba can be seen at http://youtu.be/jYvimRnlTqE.
View the more traditional Israeli view of history in the History Channel’s The Birth of a Nation .(it is in 10 parts)
http://youtu.be/5q3xHE9D9dc
The schools of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) have been providing excellent education for students in Palestinian communities since 1851 – regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability to pay. They were the first schools in the region to teach girls, and women’s rights, along with mutual understanding, democratic values and, of course, holistic, academic excellence are among their goals. Christians and Muslims learn side by side how to live with one another with tolerance and friendship.
The schools teach English from Kindergarten through the 12th grade, equipping students for dialogue with international partners and expanding their opportunities for college and careers. Through the ELCJHL Libraries Project, we invite you to accompany teachers in the Holy Land as they build libraries that foster a love of language and learning right from the start. A great book has the power to open a world of possibilities!
This project allows you to purchase books from a list of books developed by the ELCJHL teachers. The students, teachers and parents thank you for building up their libraries and their education!
Download a flier about the project. | Read more about it on the ELCJHL website
One of the many kinds of permits that people in the West Bank need in order to travel into East Jerusalem or Israel.
May 11, 2011 – An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz by Akiva Elder today reveals that Israel revoked residency rights of 140,000 Palestinians who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994 without telling the Palestinians what they were doing. When Palestinians left, they were ordered to leave their residency cards at the border, then Israel decided that if they didn’t return within a certain amount of time they would cancel their residency rights altogether.
The Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel says the West Bank’s Palestinian population amounted to 1.05 million in 1994, which means the population would have been greater by about 14 percent if it weren’t for the procedure.
Today, a similar procedure is still in place for residents of East Jerusalem who hold Israeli ID cards; they lose their right to return if they have been abroad for seven years. (See previous post on “The Bookseller of Jerusalem.“)
According to another article by Akiva Elder, Palestinian Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Haaretz:
This policy should not only be seen as a war crime as it is under international law; it also has a humanitarian dimension: we are talking about people who left Palestine to study or work temporarily but who could not return to resume their lives in their country with their families. Israel’s actions violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that ‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.’
Ray Dolphin, Barrier Specialist at the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian territory and author of a new report called East Jerusalem: Key Humanitarian Concerns, held a press conference Monday, May 9, highlighting findings of the report that there are many humanitarian factors pushing Palestinians out of Jerusalem.
Key factors threatening the Palestinian presence include:
For each issue raised, there are recommendations, such as: stop settlement building in East Jerusalem; stop home demolitions; stop the revocation of residency rights; increase the number, quality of and access to classrooms. The 116-page report details the background and current status of each issue as well as provides case studies and stories.
Among these stories:
For more information on the background and issues about Jerusalem, see the Peace not Walls Jerusalem page.
Israel is in the process of expelling Munther Fahmi, "the bookseller of Jerusalem." Photo from The National website.
Imagine that you were told you were not allowed to live in the city in which you were born or grew up. That is what has happened to 14,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, and the pace has been accelerating. In 2008 alone, the last year records are complete, 4,500 residency permits were rescinded.
When Israel began the occupation in 1967, most Palestinians were not made citizens but residents, which came with restrictions. If you leave Jerusalem for an extended period of time to live elsewhere (including other parts of the West Bank), your residency rights can be rescinded.
Munther Fahmi is known as “the bookseller of Jerusalem” because he runs the bookstore at the exclusive American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem which serves such guests as Tony Blair, Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter, to name a few. This bookstore is known as an “oasis of dialogue” in a country riddled by conflict, says writer Jonathan Cook, because there are many dialogue events featuring writers on all sides of the conflict.
But despite Munther’s many famous friends who have written letters and the good work his bookstore does, Israeli officials have told him that they will no longer automatically issue him the tourist visas he needs to live there year-round. His residency rights were already rescinded because he has a US passport and lived away for a number of years before returning in the early 90s after the Oslo Agreement. Now, he may well have to leave Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory altogether, and possibly be re-admitted for only 3 months a year, if that.
Read more about it in Jonathan Cook’s article, The Jerusalem Expulsions.
Read more about this and other issues related to Jerusalem in the March UN report East Jerusalem: Key Humanitarian Concerns.
