'A Partner for Peace' by Alan Feldman, Part 2

Palestinian youths kept out of Jewish section of Hebron (Photos courtesy of Alan)

The long-standing Israeli policies which encourage settlement of Jews in the West Bank are undermining the prospects for ever achieving a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. These policies appear to provide strong evidence that the current Israeli government has no intention of allowing the restoration of normal life on the West Bank and the creation of a Palestinian state. We see in the newspapers each month that the number of settlers on the West Bank increases with the encouragement of the Netanyahu government; as a consequence, the future cost (in human, political, and financial terms) of the withdrawal of these settlers goes higher and higher.

New East Jerusalem settlement/neighborhood of Har Homa.

Continuing Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem is even more problematic. East Jerusalem is part of the city that was mainly Arab when conquered (and subsequently annexed) by Israel in 1967. Palestinians have declared their intention to make the Arab parts of East Jerusalem their capital when a Palestinian state is created. However, on our visit to Har Homa, one of the newly constructed Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, we observed how the planned placement of these new urban settlements means that the possibility to partition Jerusalem is becoming more and more difficult; Jewish settlements such as this one are literally cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem from the Palestinians of the West Bank. The Israeli government also offers financial incentives for Israeli Jews to move to communities such as this one. Even our tour guide in Jerusalem, from the organization Ir Amim (City of Nations), which is committed to an “equitable and stable Jerusalem,” admitted that he himself lives in Har Homa because it is how he can afford to live in the city.

'A Partner for Peace' by Alan Feldman

Alan Feldman is a recently retired school principal from the Boston area who just happened to meet one of our Israel Symposium participants, (Rabbi) Israel Si Dresner, at a Friday night service on the eve of our program.  He joined the Symposium for most of our activities, and his wife joined us for a day. These are his reflections:

Photo of our group in Hebron, shared by Alan; 500 Jews live apart from 165,000

 Arabs.

My wife and I are living in Tel Aviv for three months this fall. In addition to the anticipated pleasure of being with our daughter, grandchildren and in-laws here (our daughter made aliyah in 2006), I had another goal: to better understand the present and future course of the country. What are the prospects for a secure and just peace with the Palestinians, and for Israel to maintain the Zionist vision of being a home for Jews, yet remain a democracy with full respect for human rights? To maintain its current prosperity yet avoid the extremes of rich-and-poor that have become so polarizing in the U.S.? Like many American Jews, I’m deeply committed to Israel, yet troubled by some of its current policies and what they mean for the country.

Last month, I joined a week-long study mission of Israel and the Palestinian territories sponsored by Partners for Progressive Israel, an American group closely tied to Meretz, a left-wing Zionist political party in Israel. Over the week, the group met with many prominent Israelis (including two government minsters), as well as Palestinian leaders. The mission, my conversations with Israelis and Americans since, and the conflict with Hamas in Gaza, brought into sharp focus for me the hard issues facing Israel. What follows is some of my personal thinking based on these experiences. 

We endorse making Palestine Non-Member Observer State at UN

The following is Partners for Progressive Israel's official statement on the application of Palestine to become a Non-Member Observer State at the UN:

Partners for Progressive Israel strongly endorses the application of Palestine to be accorded Non-Member Observer State status at the United Nations and calls on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to do so as well.

As a longstanding member of the American Zionist movement and as an organization that traces its roots to the days of Israel’s creation, we regard the Palestinian application as a vital step forward towards a durable, just, comprehensive, negotiated two-state peace, which is the only way to secure Israel’s existence as a democratic, Jewish-majority state.

The recent violence between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza has underscored that any attempt to ignore the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and any effort to indefinitely maintain the status quo of ‘manageable Occupation’ and ‘low-intensity conflict’ – as Israel’s current government seems inclined – is dangerous folly that is certain to exact a growing price in suffering and death on both sides.

My unscientific survey of Israeli opinion

I spent the week following my participation in last month's Israel Symposium with relatives.  I've kept close contact with five first cousins on my mother's side, and most of their children, who now have more children of their own than I can easily keep track of.

With my Israeli relatives in 2007 (I'm in middle in white shirt)

One such first cousin (once removed) hosted me on the night before my return to New York.  We had a Friday night Shabbat dinner with his in-laws, including his rather prominent brother-in-law, a globe-trotting authority on energy issues.  

It's no secret that Meretz, the progressive Israeli party we feel a kinship towards, is struggling to garner enough votes to regain influence in Israeli politics.  It was a pleasant coincidence that I recently met a run of Israelis, outside of the Symposium, who happened to be Meretz supporters. These include the filmmaker, Arnon Goldfinger (whom I interviewed two days before my departure), a young couple from Kibbutz Shiloh whom I chatted with as we waited for our flight out of JFK, plus several of my cousins.  One of these was my host that evening, who now considers himself a "socialist," after being disabused in his career of the altruistic goodwill of his private employers and being inspired by last year's social protest movement.  Others include his sister and her husband, who now live as non-member residents on the kibbutz where he was raised.  It's not a surprise that my firebrand dovish cousin Gila, with whom I again spent a wonderful few days at her home at Kibbutz Kabri, will vote for Meretz.

But my time listening to the political views of other relatives was less gratifying.  One

What I Saw & Heard in Israel and Palestine

I was in Israel for a month, which included six intensive days participating in the Partners for Progressive IsraeI Symposium, October 20-27.  I have participated in the Symposium several times in the past.  

Our first meeting was with Yossi Beilin, the former MK, cabinet minister, Chairman of the Meretz party, who was the architect of the Oslo process and a prime mover in the Geneva Accord.  In 1995, Beilin reached a historic understanding with Palestinian leader Abbas on a final status agreement, which served as a basis for the Clinton parameters.  He was also a negotiator at the Taba talks.  He has been at the business of peace for several decades.  He was anecdotal, sharing choice tidbits about Netanyahu; but concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, he was modest, settling for an interim agreement for now.

Grafitti at Separation Wall, Kalandia

We met with more than 30 people, from top Likud officials, to opinion makers, political activists, bloggers and those running NGO's such as B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights and Physicians for human Rights.  We traveled to the West Bank, saw the settlements, and went to Hebron.  We met with our Meretz friends: among them Naomi Chazan, Meretz head Zahava Gal-on, diplomat Ilan Baruch (a new recruit to Meretz who was a career diplomat); also with noted journalist Aluf Benn, blogger Noam Sheizaf and pollster Kalman Gaier.  We met Dani Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council who argued against a two-state solution, as he wrote in the pages of the NY Times, that an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan would be a "recipe for disaster," a hotbed of extremism.  He really rattled the group with his unabashedly, self-righteous position that God was on the side of the settlers, in spite of the fact that he defines himself as a secular person who believes in equal rights (says he had boycotted apartheid South Africa).
 
We traversed the Kalandia checkpoint and the “Separation Barrier” -- which runs approximately 400 miles -- mostly a fence & trench system, with 10% being a 26-foot high concrete wall covered with murals of Arafat and other anti-occupation art work.  We are accompanied by an armed Palestinian security detail to our meetings with Palestine Authority officials.  Along the road I note that Ramallah continues to thrive and construct new buildings.  We met with PM Salaam Fayyad, PLO Executive Council member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, PLO Secretary Yasser Abed Rabbo,  and American-Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour.

Views from Jerusalem & Gaza

As you can all imagine, these are very trying times in the Middle East for both Israelis and Palestinians. A very intense two week visit to New York and Washington was soon followed by a regional Athens Dialogue that Co-Editor Ziad AbuZayyad and I have just returned from. 

        The Athens Dialogue was devoted to Establishing a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, with 37 participants from Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Turkey, Greece and some relevant internationals. Most of the participants were from civil society, though some were also currently serving diplomats.   The dialogue began on the same day of the targeted killing of Hamas military head Ahmad Jabari, which started the current round of heavy hostilities.

         In order to understand the perspective from Gaza, please read the following message that was sent to us by our editorial board member Ali Abu Shahla:

The View from Gaza by Ali Abu Shahla 2012-11-20

Bernard Avishai on Gaza War

The following is an abridged version of Bernard Avishai's latest post, "Playing With Fire: A Dispatch From The Front -- Of The Television" at Open Zion (Peter Beinart's edited blog at The Daily Beast) and Avishai's own Bernard Avishai Dot Com blog:

The Gaza war, if that's the word for it, has reduced Israelis living more than 40 kilometers from the Gaza border to spectators of a kind of reality TV show: familiar contestants but no clear plot.... Hamas's Haniya says that killing al-Jabari would "open the gates of hell" for Israel. Shas's Eli Yishai says that Gaza should be bombed back to the Middle Ages (presumably, an era Shas knows well). ...

The key here, as it always is at first with air power: find "quality targets" while minimizing civilian casualties. And in the opening hours of the operation IAF commanders operated as if Judge Goldstone were looking over their shoulders, releasing videos of pinpoint strikes against missile installations and cruising Jeeps, with no damage caused to nearby homes or mosques. Yesterday, however, there were the predictable "errors," along with the usual recriminations about Hamas using Gazans as "human shields," and, horribly, the corpses of small children being dragged from rubble.

To be clear, Hamas is using human shields. Even the most ardent peace advocate does not doubt that--whatever the grievances of the Naqba and occupation--Hamas has been engaging in terrorism of the most brazen sort, which must be stopped. This brazenness is earning Israel something unusual: the near universal, if provisional, sympathy of Western nations. There can be no excuse, none, for firing hundreds of rockets into Israeli cities, aiming to kill Israelis at random, betraying a totalitarian political imagination in which the people here become mere categories ("Zionists," "occupiers"), and categories have become candidates for elimination.

Meretz: Cheering Obama; comparison with Hadash

This JTA article (dated Nov. 7), "As Obama takes second term, Israelis wonder what the future holds," mentions in it first few paragraphs, Young Meretz activists partying happily at an Obama  reelection celebration:

Harold Shapiro wears 'My heart on left' tee, flanked by T. Bikel & L. Rivlin.

Most Israelis were asleep as the polls closed in America and voters waited for the results, but on one rooftop in central Tel Aviv a party with loud classic rock music and flashing lights was going strong.
It was the pro-Obama election-watching party of Israel’s left-wing Meretz party. Deviating from a solidly anti-Obama consensus in Israel -- a poll showed Israeli Jews preferring Republican challenger Mitt Romney over the president, 59 percent to 22 percent -- Meretz’s young members drank, talked and danced around a projection screen alternating between CNN and Israeli news coverage.
For members of Israel’s embattled left, the party was a chance to celebrate liberalism. Attendees wore bright green shirts reading “My heart is leftist” or sporting Obama paraphernalia from 2008. A cheer rose as an Israeli TV station presented a photo slideshow of the president’s life.
“We identify with the progressive values Obama represents,” said Tomer Reznik, 23, chairman of the Young Meretz group. “On one hand he supports Israel, and pushes Israel with the other hand.”

The green T-shirts mentioned, which our visiting delegation on the recent Israel Symposium also wore at times (as pictured here), bore the Hebrew slogan more accurately translated as "My heart is on the left" with a lower line reading "Meretz: the left of Israel." Among the people we met was a Member of Knesset who represents a left political party that is not Meretz.  Dov Hanin is a highly respected MK of the Hadash party; he is the sole Jewish MK (among four in the current Knesset) of a longstanding movement that is ideologically bi-national and not Zionist.  It has in common with Meretz a commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, but Hanin sees Meretz as not speaking adequately to the Arab citizens of Israel. 

Our Statement on Current Israel-Gaza Violence

.... As we learned four years ago, massive Israeli military action, divorced from diplomatic progress, does not deliver long-term results. Precious human lives are wasted for short-term gains, or no gains at all. And sometimes the use of force inadvertently creates worse scenarios, as we have witnessed repeatedly throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ...

The full text of this statement from the Partners for Progressive Israel leadership can be found on the Partners website by clicking here.

Israel Killed Its Hamas Interlocutor

Tensions and mutual attacks in and near Gaza have been on the rise for weeks now.  Scores of rockets were launched into Israel during this organization's Israel Symposium last month.  During an all-too-short ceasefire, we visited the northern boundary of Gaza with Israel on Oct. 26, gazing into the long narrow strip of land that is the world's most overpopulated place with a resident of a nearby kibbutz; he has helped organize "Another Voice," Israelis and Palestinians on opposite sides of the line who have established phone and email contact to express compassion and offer mutual support. The Israelis have raised funds to help Gazans with medical needs (such as prostheses from limbs lost in the fighting). The Gazans maintain this contact in secret from the Hamas authorities.

As of this moment, a new round of violence has turned increasingly deadly, with this morning's news of three Israelis and 11 Palestinians killed. Today's New York Times editorial soberly asks if we are witnessing the beginning of "Another Israel-Gaza War?"

Gershon Baskin, the peace activist and Jerusalem Post columnist who helped arrange the deal with Hamas for the release of Gilad Shalit, reacted with consternation on Facebook to the news of Israel's assassination yesterday of the Hamas military commander, Ahmed Jabari:

Yachad: Kindred Spirits in the UK

Hannah Weisfeld on the future of pro-Israel from Yachad on Vimeo (speaking at a J Street conference).

Yachad is a British Jewish organization that is remarkable for its kinship to both J Street and ourselves.  It appears to combine the professionalism and organizational know-how of J Street with the moral clarity and cutting-edge policy boldness we have advanced as a pro-Zionist group that supports an economic boycott targeting Israel's occupation of the West Bank, while supporting Israel's legitimacy within its pre-'67 boundaries.

First Report on New Meretz Candidates

Avshalom (Abu) Vilan

Haaretz highlights the supposed demotion of our longtime friend, the ex-MK Avshalom (Abu) Vilan, to seventh place (along with the veteran ex-MK and peace activist Mossi Raz to eighth) on the new Meretz Knesset list.  The Haaretz writer hooks his article on the notion that this further marks the decline of the kibbutz movement (a mere 1.5% of Israel's population) as an influence on Israeli life.  We can only express the hope that this report is exaggerated on both grounds, with poll data being fluid, and sometimes indicating a Meretz resurgence powerful enough to carry both Vilan and Raz back to the Knesset. This Haaretz article begins as follows:

The Meretz convention elected the party's Knesset candidates last night. Currently, the party only has three MKs: after leader Zahava Gal-On, who was guaranteed the top slot, Ilan Gilon and Nitzan Horowitz were again elected to top the list. To the following three slots were selected Michal Rozin, the director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, Arab-Israeli accountant Issawi Frej from Kafr Qasem and Tel Aviv City Council member, Tamar Zandberg. Frej's success was the major surprise, as only six percent of convention members are Arab, but it seems that many Jewish members thought it important to have a non-Jewish candidate with a realistic shot at getting in, despite the fact that most Israeli-Arabs prefer voting for non-Zionist Arab parties. Frej also had the endorsement of the party's spiritual eminence, writer Amos Oz. The other two newcomers to the top six also benefited from the party's earlier decision to ensure gender equality among its candidates.

Baskin: Appoint Dan Kurtzer for Peace Team

If anyone can do it, the team that Gershon Baskin suggests (Dan Kurtzer and Rob Malley) could, but I think that Obama has so many domestic issues that his mind may not be on this.  On the other hand, if his eye is now on history for his second term, Obama could still make history by "solving" this conflict.

Baskin is one of the many people who met with us during our recent Israel Symposium. This is the key passage in Baskin's latest article at the Daily Beast:

.... Obama needs a new Middle East team in place immediately. .... The best man around for the job is Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, a former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, on staff in the State Department from the Carter administration, engaged in every round of peace making efforts in the last twenty years and extremely active since leaving State in an enormous array of Track II efforts all around the region. Kurtzer could be assisted by Rob Malley, currently with the International Crisis Group, a former senior staff person in Clinton’s National Security Council. These two experienced diplomats and experts know all of the issues and the players inside-out. ....

Obama's Win: 'Good for the Jews'?

In an all-too brief segment on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Wed., Nov. 7, our chaver and fellow blogger, Hillel Schenker, was featured commenting on why President Obama's reelection is good for Israel.  He was actually interviewed a day or two prior to the election.

In the meantime, Emily Hauser blogs skeptically on Open Zion, "This Election: Good for the Jews?" While she in no way endorsed Romney, and retains a hope that Pres. Obama can make progress toward a two-state solution, her piece rings with disappointment: 

... despite all the protestations from all sides of the Democratic map that [Obama] really, really loves Israel, just look at how much military aid he’s given!—that he’s done much good for Israel. On the contrary: In allowing the conflict to drag on for four more bloody, settlement-heavy years, President Obama has done an active disservice to American security interests, American foreign policy goals, Israel’s long-term viability, and (it bears mentioning) the Palestinian people.

Our chaver and board chair Theo Bikel sent out the following analysis from the Reuters news service:

More from Ramallah; and on 2 states & BDS

Sam Bahour

Yesterday, Nov. 6, the editors of Peter Beinart's "Open Zion" blog at the Daily Beast website posted my piece on Palestinian-American businessman Sam Bahour, whom we had met in Ramallah two weeks before. The most newsy item we were informed of was the seven billion dollars worth of private Palestinian capital waiting the right business climate for investment.  I followed up in a cordial email conversation with Mr. Bahour.  My article was appropriately entitled, "Enough Money, Too Much Occupation," by the editors. 

Of the two "Viewpoint" pieces from the Autumn 2012 issue of Jewish Currents, one was mine, defending the two-state solution.  The other was by Donna Nevel and Dorothy M. Zellner in support of the BDS movement.  Donna was once married to an associate editor of Israel Horizons, when this recently discontinued print magazine was sponsored by Americans for Progressive Israel, before it moved over to its successor, Meretz USA.  I've edited IH in the early 1990s under API, and then again for Meretz USA (now Partners for Progressive Israel) from 2003 until its termination in 2011.

I bring this up because Donna once considered herself a left-Zionist in our tradition, but has long ago left our ranks. I posted three comments at the Jewish Currents website critiquing the Nevel-Zellner article.  One is a copy of what I submitted as a letter to the editor for the next print edition of Jewish Currents. The others may seem like inside baseball, as I respond to comments by Sheldon Ranz,  another one-time API'er.  I hope that you will check them out, as I believe that I very effectively counter the argumentation for a general economic boycott against Israel, as opposed to the targeted settlements-only boycott that this organization supports. 

Odds & Ends from Israel Symposium

Assembled on last day (photo by Hillel Schenker)

There is still much to report on our organization's recent Israel Symposium. Here's another installment:

During our visit to the Knesset on Oct. 22, we heard from Moshe (Boogie) Ya'alon, a former armed forces chief of staff who is the Likud cabinet minister on strategic issues.  He sees the hand of Iran as omnipresent in global terrorism, even in alliances with Jihadist Sunni elements, including al Qaeda (what most experts regard as unlikely). And he regards the Arab Spring upheavals as more of a threat than an opportunity. 

We also had reason to disagree with Benny Begin, the son of the late prime minister Menachem Begin, known for a somewhat liberal view on individual rights for Arabs, but hardline on peace issues and in opposing a Palestinian state.  Similarly, we were almost struck dumb the next day in Tel Aviv by Danny Dayan, the leader of Yesha, the settlers council, for justifying unlimited settlement expansion.

Re Two Elections and Two States

This past week I have been immersed in both the run-up to the American elections and in Israeli-Palestinian affairs.  I participated in a debate with a Republicans Abroad representative on Sunday evening in Jerusalem, and on Monday in a program organized by CNN at Tel Aviv U.   Former Meretz leader Yossi Beilin was also at TAU, and like me wearing a black shirt, causing white-shirted suit and tie Republican Chair Mark Zell, former law partner of Bush administration neo-con Douglas Feith, one of the people who brought us the Iraq War, to comment.  I explained to him that most women and many men know that black makes them look thinner.  

       To show you how I have been advocating for the reelection of President Obama, here's a link to the op-ed I published in The Jerusalem Post this week:

Why Obama - JPost - Opinion - Op-Eds 

4 days ago ... The Jerusalem Post ... President Obama and the Democratic Party stand for values that we believe in, tikkun olam, the creation of a better ... Hillel Schenker is acting chair of Democrats Abroad – Israel, and lives in Tel Aviv