Newsletter of the Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace

No 105/106 - December 2002

Editor: Adam Keller
Editorial Board: Uri Avnery, Matti Peled, Yaakov Arnon, Haim Bar'am, Yael Lotan, Yossi Amitai

Index
The Reawakening Editorial overview
# The Labor contenders
# The Mitzna phenomenon
# ...but the Sharon tide not over, yet
# Wriggling out
# Rabinism revived
The army caught sleepingby Adam Keller
Show trial in Tel-Aviv
Get the Facts to the public by Dorothy Naor
Racist heritage
On such days...
From the square to the orchard
I am no occupier, full stop by Uri Ya'acobi
Off we go to prison cell
Visible and invisible prisons by Matan Kaminer
The politics of harvest
'Don't go here - go there!' by Beate Zilversmidt
Transfer's real nightmare by Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir
Gush Shalom still targeted
When it is someone you know... by Ami Isseroff
 Letter to the Attorney General by Uri Avnery
Activist behind the scenes by Rayna Moss
Naboth had a vineyard by Uri Avnery



The Reawakening

Two years ago, Ehud Barak went into elections while declaring peace to be impossible and convincing the Israeli public that the new cycle of violence was entirely the result of Palestinian perfidy and rejection of "generous offers." As a result, the Labor Party was perceived as having accepted the basic positions of its long-time Likud rival. Under such circumstances there seemed to be little reason for voters to prefer Labor to Likud, and Sharon came to power in an unprecedented landslide.

By the same token, there wasn't much to prevent Labor from joining the Sharon government. Thus it came about that the long-controversial Sharon not only started his term with a sweeping victory but was also able to form a very convenient "National Unity Government" with Labor as a satellite and minor partner -- a party not just electorally defeated, but perceived by itself and everybody else as politically and ideologically bankrupt.

Former minister Yossi Beilin, holding out for remaining in opposition, continuing contacts with the Palestinians and presenting an alternative to Sharon's policies, was quite a lone voice. In the vacuum left by Barak's total disappearance after humiliating defeat, the leadership got into the hands of Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a mediocre politician whose personal convictions seemed far closer to Sharon than to Beilin.

For his part, Sharon found it highly useful to have Ben-Eliezer as his defence minister. Thus, it was a Labor man who took daily responsibility for implementing the Sharon Government's increasingly harsh policies against the Palestinians, up to the complete reconquest of the West Bank cities. (Soon, it became obvious that Ben Eliezer's control over the army was at best partial. Openly contemptuous of "the man who himself never got above brigadier", the General Staff established direct links with the PM.) And as if it was not enough, Shimon Peres at the age of 76 seemed all too eager to postpone his farewell to politics and took up the foreign ministry.

So it was that a prime minister with the sinister shadow of Sabra and Shatila and other bloody deeds in his past could turn up with a renowned Nobel Peace Prize laureate as his chief international propagandist.

For his loyalty, Sharon generously let Peres continue the habit of many years and spin out various imaginative diplomatic initiatives. International diplomats soon realized, however, that Peres represented only himself, and that in order to get a real idea of the Israeli government policies they had to approach the prime minister's bureau.

From Sharon's point of view, the importance of having the Laborites as partners steadily diminished as he consolidated his hold over the mainstream of the political spectrum and established a position on the international arena. In Washington, where Sharon had been a definite persona non grata in the time of the elder Bush, he soon had no need of Peres to protest his flank -- and in the wake of September 11, the Israeli PM became a warmly embraced partner in George W.'s "War on Terrorism." Sharon had now his own channels of communications with the White House, but Peres still remained useful on the European theater, where on various occasion he deflected the growing anger at Sharon's policies, preventing it from hardening into concrete action.

Though already before the end of 2001 it was obvious that Peres, Ben Eliezer and the other Labor ministers had no real influence on government policies, they were to cling to their empty honors for a full further year.

***

The first cautious moves towards recovery of the Israeli peace camp took part far from the confines of the Labor Party -- among the small, persistent extra- parliamentary groups which had been keeping the flame alive throughout the bleak times, and which experienced a kind of upswing in the end of 2001 and the first months of 2002.

There had been the cease-fire which Arafat proclaimed in a broadcast speech and which held for several weeks, long enough to kindle fragile hopes among Israelis and Palestinians alike; later came the series of gross provocations by which the Israeli army and security services shattered that cease-fire in such an open and blatant way that Sharon found it difficult to convincingly place upon the Palestinians the entire blame for the new cycle of bloodshed which ensued.

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Participation at peace demonstrations and protests suddenly increased from hundreds to thousands. Then there was the February 9 rally in which various peace groups, Gush Shalom among them, pooled their resources, together mobilizing some ten thousand participants (see TOI-101 p.15/16); and shortly afterwards, a second rally, organized by Peace Now drawing even more. In the meantime, the unprecedented increase in soldiers' refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories, to the point that generals started to consider it "a strategic threat"...

It was, also, a time of increased stirrings inside the captive Labor Party, such as the plan of Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg to go to Ramallah and address the Palestinian Parliament (he talked about it a lot, but never actually did it).

Much of the headway made in these months was to be lost in the course of "Bloody March", the time when highly destructive army invasions of the Palestinian refugee camps alternated with an unprecedented wave of daily suicide bombings at the Israeli population centers. It was these bombings which drove Israelis to such a frenzy of fear and hatred that Sharon easily got full public backing for what he had wanted all along: full reconquest of the West Bank.

According to commentator Chemi Shalev of Ma'ariv, Sharon had expected the Labor Party to bolt the government once he got to this stage, and had in store various contingency plans for such an eventuality. But Labor did nothing of the kind. Peres, Ben Eliezer and their colleagues remained on in the cabinet, taking the full share of responsibility for "Operation Defensive Wall" and playing a conspicuous role in the systematic dismantling of the structure laid down during the Oslo years.

The Laborites' position was partially a response to the mood of patriotic enthusiasm and "national unity" which swept the country in April -- but it also helped increase that mood and drive the peace movement once more into isolation.

The public enthusiasm for war was, however, short-lived. The promise of Sharon and his generals that conquest of the Palestinian cities would spell the end of terrorism proved false all too soon, and by May the old doubts and controversies resurfaced. The change of public mood was evident when the government planned to use a new spate of suicide bombings as motive for a big-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip as well. Several reserve divisions were called up, and the Supreme Command even drafted an "Order of the Day" for the operation -- but there were reports of widespread disaffection and a distinct lack of enthusiasm among the troops for what was expected to be a major military undertaking. After a few tense days, the Gaza invasion was called off.

This coincided, not quite by coincidence, with the largest peace rally since the beginning of the present Intifada. The rally into which Peace Now threw all its resources and which drew a crowd estimated at a hundred thousand to Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square (see TOI-103 p.21) had the effect of clearly and unmistakably demonstrating the existence of a substantial dovish constituency on the Israeli scene.

To be sure, it was a minority in the Israeli society as a whole; still, after a year in which it had become fashion to declare the peace movement dead, it proved alive and kicking, and even hard-nosed politicians in the Labor Party milieu had to take this into account.

In fact, two weeks after the peace rally Ben-Eliezer got the party conference to adopt what was at face value the most dovish Labor program ever. But it did not make much of an impression on either the doves or the general public. There was no practical change in the Labor leader's daily conduct as Sharon's Defence Minister, the bold peace initiatives envisaged in the new program being reserved for a misty future "after Arafat." Indeed, a few weeks after getting that program adopted Ben-Eliezer presided over "Operation Determined Path" -- the comprehensive re-re-occupation of the West Bank cities for an indefinite duration.

Though the sending of the tanks back in did not arouse any great enthusiasm or much hope, at the time it also did not arouse any significant opposition, either inside the Labor Party, or in Israeli society as a whole. But in retrospect, it can be said that in going along with this, the crowning touch of Ariel Sharon's policy, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer lost his chance of retaining the Labor Party leadership.

It was at that point that the resurgence of the doves began -- though it was not Beilin or any of his circle, but the dark horse Amram Mitzna, Mayor of Haifa, who was to eventually win the leadership race.


The Labor contenders

Yossi Beilin had considered leaving the Labor Party immediately upon its entry into Sharon's cabinet in

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March 2001, and join the Meretz Party in opposition. But as at the time hardly anyone else would have left with him, he preferred to bide his time.

As the main architect of the Oslo Agreement, Beilin insisted that the negotiations, so disastrously broken off by Barak, could have been concluded successfully, given just a bit more time and goodwill. Nor was it, for him, just a matter of "might have beens." Without any official authority, Beilin persisted in weaving intricate webs of private diplomacy, involving numerous Palestinian interlocutors and international diplomats, with the aim of reaching a text which could be adopted by a future Israeli government.

Meanwhile, Beilin declared his willingness to support any dove willing to enter the leadership contest, scheduled for November 2002, when all of Labor's 100,000 registered members were to elect the party leader in primary elections. In case of Ben-Eliezer winning that contest and being confirmed in office, Beilin threatened to leave the party with his followers -- by now a substantial body -- and join with Meretz in creating "a new social-democratic party."
The first to offer an open challenge to Ben-Eliezer's leadership was the veteran Haim Ramon, a capable organizer and skillful orator, and vastly ambitious. A dove of quite a different breed than Beilin, Ramon had long since come to the conclusion that under the prevailing conditions of fear and bloodshed, Israeli distrust of the Palestinians had become too strong to approach the voters with a program advocating dialogue, negotiations and reconciliation.

Instead, Ramon made himself the foremost advocate of Unilateral Separation. According to this idea, Israel would withdraw from the whole Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank to a self-defined border, dismantle the more faraway scattered settlements while retaining control of "settlement blocks", and erect a high fence or wall to separate areas ceded to the Palestinian from those retained by Israel.

The idea had been circulating in different political circles since the outbreak of hostilities two years ago, gaining the support of political figures in different parties, of influential newspaper columnists, and last but not least of the ex-generals organized in "The Council for Peace and Security."
Indeed, Ben-Eliezer himself made a desperate effort to steal Ramon's thunder by initiating the construction of a "Separation Fence" some kilometers east of the border with the West Bank. But this "Separation Fence" (a wall in all but name) -- to be erected without any plans for withdrawal of Israeli troops or settlers -- did not contain even a hint of a political solution and would not mean an end to the violence. Its main net result was to provide a pretext for confiscating yet more land from the hapless Palestinian villagers on whose land it was planned.

"Separation" was being presented as the "perfect compromise between Left and Right", the one way in which people completely distrustful of the Palestinians might be nevertheless induced to accept withdrawal from most of the Palestinian territories. Over the past two years, predictions were often made of a vast new popular movement arising under this flag, to hold enormous rallies and become an irresistible force in Israeli politics. Yet somehow such a movement failed to materialize, and several efforts to create it were stillborn.

While politicians could find it a good practical compromise, "separation" seemed to lack emotional coherence when proposed as a captivating idea for the masses: a concept in which hope for peace is virtually given up, feelings of bitter hostility are catered to -- and yet the conclusion is the making of major territorial concessions.

This might be the fundamental reason why Ramon failed to gain his object. There were additional reasons, especially the grudge which many Laborites bear him from back in 1990's, when he dismantled the apparatus associated with the Histadrut trade union federation (it had been old and rotten, but it had also been a major bastion for the Labor Party and, not to forget, a source of jobs for many party hacks). Whatever the ultimate reason, Ramon -- despite some impressive speeches ("We will no longer be Sharon's sheep; we know where the animals on his farm ultimately end up!") -- was to be no more than a footnote in the Labor leadership contest.


The Mitzna phenomenon

Like many Israeli politicians, Amram Mitzna had started as an army general. In 1982 he made headlines when voicing public opposition to then Defence Minister Sharon, criticizing the invasion of Beirut. As the general in charge of the West Bank during the first Intifada, however, he had not been particularly liberal.

After discharge from the army he turned to municipal politics and was elected mayor of the northern port of Haifa, a city with a large Arab community. In this capacity he made a name for himself during one memorable evening in October 2000, when he plunged alone into a crowd of angry Arabs in downtown Haifa, who had been clashing for hours with the police, and patiently listened to their bitter complaints and recriminations.

Mitzna's act was credited, at least in part, with the fact that on a week when in other areas the police shot dead 13 Arab citizens of Israel, nothing of the kind happened in Haifa. On another level, Mitzna's critics in Haifa accused him of being over-friendly with building contractors and real estate seeking lucrative deals in his city.

A good mayor or a bad one, half a year ago few people would have expected Amram Mitzna to leap into prominence in Israel's national politics. Unlike the situation in some countries, Israeli municipal politics are not the usual springboard towards the parliament or the government, and most politicians who attain the office of mayor stay there for the rest of their careers. A special combination of circumstances made Mitzna an exception to this rule -- the first being the intervention of a group of business people led by textile tycoon Dov Lautman.

Lautman and his colleagues had been feeling increasingly concerned at the direction the country was taking -- militarily and economically alike -- and

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decided to do something about it. Their main premise: the bloody confrontation with the Palestinians was bad for business.

Indeed, virtually all the country's serious economists concur in linking the deepening depression of the Israeli economy with "the security situation": no tourists, no foreign investors, official and unofficial boycotts on Israeli goods in Europe, the (much worse) economic crisis on the Palestinian side driving many people to subsistence-level poverty and thus depriving Israeli producers of a lucrative captive market... Evidently, economic recovery is bound up with ending the fighting and restarting some kind of negotiating process; and it was clear from the start that Sharon was not the man.

Initially, the Lautman group played with the idea of creating a new party, which would promote their ideas for the country's economic and political recovery. At its head they considered putting Admiral (ret.) Ami Ayalon, who had commanded the Israeli Navy and afterwards the Shabak Security Service, and who since discharge had made some surprisingly outspoken statements. However, Ayalon hesitated to take such a plunge and ultimately preferred to go into business himself.

It seems that at that point Lautman started to think of influencing the Labor Party from within. Several newspapers credit him with having convinced Mitzna to take the plunge and present himself as a challenger for the party leadership, though reportedly he had been contemplating the idea for some time himself.

The response, when Mitzna declared his candidacy, was overwhelming. From nothing, he became the leading candidate virtually overnight, easily eclipsing both the incumbent Ben-Eliezer and the chagrined veteran challenger Ramon. And despite some faltering steps, Mitzna was to keep this lead throughout nearly the whole of the Labor leadership campaign.

Evidently, the Laborite rank-and-file were longing for a new face -- a leader not tainted with the party's record of dismal failure and slavish tailing after Sharon. Mitzna is by no means as much of an accomplished orator as Ramon; but Israelis in general seem to have developed an aversion to and suspicion of too-brilliant orators (as Binyamin Netanyahu was to learn, to his cost, in the Likud leadership contest). Mitzna seems best at a more informal kind of talking -- conversational rather than oratorical, in which listeners become convinced of his sincerity.


...but the Sharon tide not over, yet

The terms of reference of Israeli politics are such that it is difficult to put up serious opposition to a Prime Minister who enjoys the full backing of the U.S. government. In his policy speech of June 24, President Bush effectively endorsed the indefinite re-occupation of the West Bank cities and authorized Sharon to use his discretion in "fighting terrorism", pending "reforms" in the Palestinian Authority, i.e. the removal of Arafat.

Sharon and his generals used that authorization to the full. To the already existing sieges and closures, making travel between Palestinian cities and villages all but impossible, were added the curfews, locking populations within their homes for days, weeks and sometimes months. The army and security services ranged throughout the cities, arresting dozens of suspected "terrorists" -- many of them political rather than military activists -- and hauling them off to the Ofer Detention Center near Ramallah and the notorious Ansar-2 in the Negev Desert, closed down in the aftermath of Oslo and now reopened. Nearly a thousand of these prisoners were placed under administrative detention, without any kind of trial, and those who did get a trial at an Israeli military court often found the verdict to be effectively preordained.

Houses were demolished by the dozen, in punishment for the act of a family member who was often dead already at the time of the demolition. The Gaza Strip, while not as thoroughly occupied as the West Bank, was the scene of ever-deepening military raids, often ending with the death of Palestinian civilians. While not being formally disbanded, the Palestinian Authority was left as little more than an empty shell.

Palestinians could look forward to little more than more of the same -- or worse. Dark rumors abounded of what Sharon might do once the American war on Iraq starts in earnest, up to massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians "under cover of the fog of war." While denying that there was any such intention, General Moshe Ya'alon, the new Army Chief-of-Staff, defined the war aim as "burning the fact of being defeated into the Palestinians' consciousness."

Like earlier generals in various countries, engaged in "counter-insurgency" and "low intensity conflicts", Ya'alon and other generals confidently predicted that moment of victory to be coming closer and closer, just one extra effort ahead -- only to be confronted with yet a new suicide bomber evading all dragnets and wreaking havoc yet again in an Israeli town. (The vicious circle of revenge upon revenge upon revenge seems to serve solely the prime minister who doesn't want to get to the next stage.)

In early September, the assembled Palestinian Legislative Council defied Yasser Arafat -- an event which the Israeli press interpreted as heralding "the final Palestinian break." (In fact, some of the main legislators involved are known to have demanded democratic reforms already when George W. Bush had been governor of Texas with little knowledge of the outside world -- and to be, besides, fierce opponents of the Israeli occupation). There were speculations of the impending appointment of the veteran Abu Mazen as a Palestinian "executive prime minister" who would take over effective power from Arafat (to the very limited extent that any effective power remained in the Palestinian Authority).

To judge from his declared positions, Sharon should have been highly pleased with these developments. But in fact, the emergence of an "alternative Palestinian leadership" acceptable to the Americans might have forced the PM to enter upon the negotiations which he had been avoiding over the

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past two years, and reveal the nature of the "painful concessions" he had claimed to be ready to make.

Whatever his motives, Sharon did not patiently wait for internal processes among the Palestinian to ripen. In mid-September, he used a relatively small suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv, which had nothing to do with Yasser Arafat, as a pretext for launching a major attack upon the Palestinian leader's already battered headquarters in Ramallah. Bulldozers systematically destroyed all buildings of the presidential compound but the one in which Arafat himself was present, with that remnant placed under a siege more tight and humiliating than at any of the previous confrontations.



This madness must stop!

On the evening of Sept. 22, about a hundred people answered Gush Shalom's last minute call for an emergency vigil outside the Defence Ministry, protesting the insane attack on Arafat's headquarters. A hastily printed leaflet was distributed to passers-by:

The attack on Arafat is designed to bring the Palestinian people to their knees. The only result: more hatred, more bloodshed, on both sides.

THIS MADNESS MUST STOP!

After a year of governmental anti-Arafat propaganda mentioning the name of the Palestinian leader had been making one a 'legitimate target for eggs' -- as Gush Shalom found out on an earlier occasion (TOI-103 p.22). But not this time: the reactions showed that something was different.

And indeed, after an initial knee-jerk reaction ('get rid at last of the arch-terrorist') public opinion was on its way to considering it a fiasco, for which decision makers were soon to start shoving responsibility onto each other.

Gush Shalom, pob 3322 Tel-Aviv; www.gush-shalom.org



Evidently, Sharon had miscalculated. Bush's authorization, while quite wide, turned to be not completely unlimited. While covering a multitude of smaller oppressive acts, each of which could be committed without getting the attention of the world's mass media, it did not cover a major act of wanton destruction which was captured on the screens of all the world's TV networks -- especially that it came at the very sensitive moment when the Americans were struggling to get the UN Security Council to adopt the resolution which would eventually permit them to unleash their own massive destruction upon Iraq.

And so, the US issued a clear ultimatum and Sharon was forced to back off from his attack, leaving Arafat in a far stronger position than he had been previously. Meanwhile, the week and half of siege over their leader's headquarters has caused thousands of angry Palestinians to "break the fear barrier", defy the Israeli army's curfew and take to the streets in protest demonstration -- despite numerous cases of the army responding lethally.

And once the precedent was established, Palestinian defiance of the curfew continued -- especially in Nablus, a city which the army dubbed "the capital of terrorism" and subjected to a particularly heavy and prolonged curfew. With the beginning of the new school year -- seriously disrupted by the ongoing curfew -- Nablus parents went out on the street, not demonstrating but simply escorting their children to school. The army gave way.

The revival of the first Intifada's tradition of popular, non-violent resistance aroused intensive debates and controversies among individual Palestinians, between different factions and inside each of these factions -- some holding that such non-violent acts of defiance should be the one and only way and that suicide bombings and other attacks on random civilians within Israel proper were damaging the Palestinian cause, while others remained convinced that such acts were an essential part of confronting the occupation.

Aside from organized actions of defiance, ordinary Palestinians were finding more and more ways to circumvent the Israeli curfews and get on with something resembling an ordinary daily life. Gradually, they discovered the IDF's weak spot: lack of manpower. The forces at the disposal of the regular army are simply not enough to really enforce a tight curfew on all Palestinian cities at once, while a massive call-up of reserves may entail disaffection and outright refusal of orders. Even with soldiers increasingly complaining of being overworked and denied sleep and home leaves (Ma'ariv, Nov.5), in most cities for most of the time the curfew was little more than nominal, Palestinian inhabitants "playing cat and mouse with the patrolling soldiers and tanks" (as a Hebronite put it, in a recent conversation with a TOI-staff member). It is, however, a dangerous game every now and then ending up in a funeral.

Meanwhile, as the Arab regimes started making tacit promises of support, or at least of non-intervention, in the coming attack on Iraq, Washington -- as part of the deal -- gave somewhat greater vitality to the "The Quartet". This diplomatic forum -- US, EU, UN and Russia -- was set up in April for the declared purpose of working out a coordinated mediation plan for solving the Middle East conflict, but is hostage to the constant interference of the US hardliners.

It was only after prolonged power struggles that Washington provisionally approved a document known as "The Roadmap", an outline and timeline of the proposed solution. (Cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from the cities by mid-2003, followed by Palestinian elections; the declaration of a Palestinian state with "provisional borders", covering some 40% to 50% of the West Bank, by the end of the year; the freezing of all Israeli settlement activity and the opening of negotiations on the definite solution, addressing the tough issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem and the refugees -- to be concluded in 2005 with a Palestinian state in its definite borders.)

Ironically, many elements in this "roadmap" were in fact based on proposals made by Sharon himself in the past year. However, Sharon had always taken care not to commit himself to any specific implementation dates. Rather, passage from one step to the next was to be made dependent upon "Palestinian performance." As Alex Fishman noted in Yediot Aharonot, the Prime Minister was highly annoyed with "The State Depart

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ment busybodies" for having attached a timetable to his innocent proposals, with the result that he might actually have to carry some of them out...


Wriggling out

The fiasco of the September siege on Arafat, and the changing atmosphere in its wake, made Ben-Eliezer's position as Sharon's Defence Minister completely untenable. With all polls showing Mitzna increasing his lead in the run-up for the Labor primaries, Ben-Eliezer made desperate efforts to establish for himself a dovish image.

He entered into intensive negotiations with the Palestinians on a "Bethlehem First" plan, under which Israeli forces would evacuate that city in return for a Palestinian promise to keep order within its confines; later, the plan was extended to include Hebron as well.

It seemed a pale replay of "Gaza and Jericho First", the preliminary step of the Oslo process under Rabin. But Ben Eliezer's version failed to arouse any of the high hopes and expectations which had accompanied that earlier move. For the Palestinians it was a step welcome in itself, but far too little -- a highly conditional restoration of no more than a minute fragment of what was taken from them. On the Israeli side, the generals frowned at the move, since General Ya'alon's new doctrine called for the army to have "general and impeded access to any place where terrorists may be found." (As could have been predicted, the army was soon to find pretexts to reoccupy the two cities.)

Next, Ben-Eliezer deliberately set himself on a collision course with the settlers. For many months, Peace Now's settlement monitoring team had compiled evidence of dozens of new "settlement outposts" being set up illegally all over the West Bank, and duly presented them to the Minister of Defence -- who, until the later months of 2002, took hardly any notice. Now, he suddenly did, demanding that the settlers evacuate the illegal positions forthwith.

The forcible evacuation of a single illegal settlement, the so-called "Gilead's Farm" in the Nablus Region, degenerated into a large-scale clash, with youthful settler thugs assaulting police and soldiers in front of the TV cameras. The clash made the general Israeli public aware of the bands of violent and fanatic second-generation settlers, who have grown up in the lawless conditions of the Israeli "Wild West" and who lack even the few restraints which their elders possessed.



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Our articles may be reprinted, provided they include the address The Other Israel POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.


The revelation galvanized the Israeli peace camp into action, with hundreds of activists mobilizing to help Palestinians carry out the olive harvest disrupted by the same violent settlers (see also Uri Avnery article p.28). But it did not make the doves accept Ben-Eliezer as their champion, nor did it stop Mitzna's sure march on the Labor leadership.

Ben-Eliezer's last throw was to get Labor to quit the government, after provoking a row with Sharon over a demand to divert a substantial part of the settlement budget to improving the lot of the poor in the Israeli society. Sharon was forced to call new elections, but that could not save the outgoing Labor leader's career -- it was about a year too late, and his motives were far too transparent. In the Labor primaries, two weeks later, he went down to a long-expected defeat, and Amram Mitzna became the party's new leader.


Rabinism revived

In the past, the Labor Party's leaders and candidates for the post of Prime Minster tended to keep their programs more than a bit vague, and if successful revealed them bit by bit during their terms. Amram Mitzna broke with that tradition, putting out forthrightly a quite detailed political program.

Apparently, the new Labor Party leader aimed at a synthesis between Beilin's Resumption of Negotiations and Ramon's Unilateral Withdrawal. If elected Prime Minister, he said, he would immediately evacuate all settlements in the Gaza Strip and start negotiations on the future of the West Bank, negotiations with whomever the Palestinians chose to represent them. If a year of negotiations proved fruitless, he would opt for a unilateral definition of borders.

Of all that, one feature stood out and attracted immediate attention: the re-legitimation of Arafat. Over the past year all major Laborites except Beilin had gone along with Sharon in proclaiming Yasser Arafat to be "a corrupt terrorist" ineligible for negotiations, and even Meretz leader Yossi Sarid had echoed them in some ill-considered public statements (not to mention the powerful endorsement from George W. Bush). And here was Mitzna suddenly reviving an argument often used by Rabin in the heyday of Oslo (and in fact, borrowed by Rabin from the campaigns of earlier peace groups): 'Not that I especially like Arafat, but you make peace with the enemy, and you can't dictate to the enemy who will represent them.

There was still another revived Rabinism: "We will negotiate as if there is no terrorism, and fight terrorism as if there are no negotiations." A far from unproblematic guideline, as one could recall from Rabin's term; it would mean that peace activists would have quite a few reasons to demonstrate against a Mitzna Government, if it ever came into being, and that nasty generals would go on doing nasty things -- at least to start with. Still, it would be a big improvement over Sharon's method: to make negotiations dependent upon a complete end to terrorism, while at the same time perpetrating carefully-calculated provocations, ensuring that the moment of quiet would never come.

For his part, even Sharon seems to have felt the need to create a dovish image of a kind. In his own inner-party contest, in which he decisively defeated former PM Binyamin Netanyahu's bid for the Likud leadership, Sharon deliberately emphasized an alleged support for the creation of a Palestinian state,

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though hedging it about with so many conditions and restrictions as to make the proposal virtually meaningless.

Still, the fact that Sharon felt it necessary to make such an appeal -- both to the general Israeli public and to the Likud Party's 300,000 registered members -- is a tribute to the change in the consciousness of the Israeli public. But it remains to be seen whether the change will be reflected in the result of the looming elections themselves.

Race against the clock

In the 1999 elections, after the Netanyahu debacle, Ehud Barak won 56% of the Israeli public, including quite a few former Likud voters. Opinion polls during and immediately following the crucial Camp David summit in August 2000 indicated that, had Barak come back with a signed agreement, he might have gotten as high as 60% to 70% of the Israeli public in new elections and/or a referendum. However, by coming back empty-handed and putting the blame on the Palestinians, Barak had handed a huge slice of the electorate on a silver platter to Sharon and the Likud.

The whole center of the Israeli political spectrum supported Sharon in the 2001 elections, and in general continued supporting him over the next two years. Despite the country's steady deterioration during his term, regarding both security and the economy most Israelis continued placing the blame on the Palestinians, rather than on the government.

Opinion polls indicate that this is still the situation at the time of writing, a month and half before January 28, the date on which elections are due. A month and half may well turn out to be too short for Mitzna to repair the grave damage done by his predecessors in the Labor leadership, with the unpleasant result that Sharon would be confirmed in power for years to come.

Still, many factors could intervene in the time until the elections and influence the voters: revelations of widespread corruption and vote rigging during the Likud internal elections, which already led to the opening of a criminal investigation by the police; the hawkish resurgence during the selection of Labor candidates for the Knesset, where Ben-Eliezer managed to take revenge upon the doves and exclude Beilin and several others from the party's list of candidates -- with the result that Beilin went over to Meretz, after all; the right-wing threat to exclude some prominent Arab politicians, such as KM Azmi Bishara and his Balad Party, from running in the elections -- which may lead to widespread boycott of the elections by Arab voters and a serious diminution of the peace camp's parliamentary representation.

These and other factors would certainly work their influences, positive and negative, and the result may remain uncertain until elections day itself. President's Bush's timing of the attack on Iraq (and the rumours about it) could also have a crucial effect on the outcome of the Israeli elections.

At such time, an Israeli peace-seeker can only hope for Mitzna's victory', against all odds. Even while knowing that if he becomes Prime Minster we may have some serious disagreements with some aspects of his policy, one can expect it to be an enormous improvement over the present one.

Failing that, and assuming that we will be doomed to endure an unknowable additional number of years of Sharon in power, the only hope is that Mitzna will at least resist the pressures -- which would surely come -- to join in a new version of the "National Unity" farce.

If that danger is avoided, there is a chance for Israel to have what we sorely lacked in the past two years -- a strong opposition, presenting to the public and to the world a clear alternative to Sharon's destructive policies.

The Editors


The army caught sleeping
by Adam Keller

Saturday morning, August 24. Once again, the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Qasem, near the West Bank border, is the rendezvous for a relief convoy organized by the Ta'ayush (Arab-Jewish Partnership) movement. Some four hundred people, Jewish and Arab, have arrived from different parts of the country. We have all been drawn here by the plight of the city of Nablus, which has been singled out for a particularly harsh curfew since being re-occupied in late June. Unlike in other West Bank cities, the Nablus curfew has been virtually continuous over months, disrupting the city's social and economic structures to the point of total collapse.

The backyard of a sympathizer's house provides enough space for everybody to gather and hear the organizers' briefing: "We have organized this convoy at the invitation of the Palestinian leadership in Nablus. There is a very serious shortage of food, particularly of milk; many families are forced to give sugared water to babies instead. We have with us three trucks, loaded mainly with flour, milk powder and baby formula. But our purpose is not just to get the food through. We intend to hold a joint demonstration with the Palestinians, to protest together against the curfew and the occupation. People in Nablus and in the towns along the way like Hawarah expect us and are preparing to demonstrate together with us. Whether or not we can actually get there is another matter. If the army tries to stop us, remember that this is strictly a non-violent demonstration. Don't respond to provocations by soldiers, nor by settlers if they show up."

Eight buses set out together with the trucks, crossing into the West Bank and setting out eastwards along the "Trans-Samaria Road", a broad highway reserved for the use of the settlers and forbidden to the Palestinian villagers on whose confiscated lands it was built.

At the moment it is almost completely empty - religious settlers do not travel on the Sabbath. Many kilometers are crossed without hindrance. But the army is waiting at the Tapuach Junction, where we have to take Route 60 leading northwards to Nablus.


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The buses and trucks stop at the dreary roadside, near a small green hut daubed with crude racist graffiti - the handiwork of settlers from nearby Tapuach. The Ta'ayush negotiating team sets out to meet the officers in charge, and the rest of us settle for a long wait.

News filters through the column from the junction ahead. It seems that a compromise was suggested. We would stay where we are, but the army would let several hundred Palestinians from the besieged cities get through the barriers and checkpoints and join up with us here. The officers present said that such a far-reaching decision could only be made by the colonel in person. The colonel is rumored to be on his way. An hour later, he has still not arrived, and the negotiators conclude that the army is just trying to stall.

Suddenly, the convoy marshals call out: "This is it -- we are setting out on foot. Hurry up!" We pick up tins of milk powder and the prepared signs -- Security for both peoples, independence for both peoples, peace between the two peoples! and 60 days' curfew -- 60 days without food and medicines. We set out over the brambles of the nearby fields, go up the gentle slope of a hill and down a sharper incline -- and we find ourselves on the Route 60 stretching Nablus with the army roadblock far behind us.

Pursuit is expected, and organizers distribute slices of onion -- an antidote to tear gas which the Palestinians discovered back at the time of the first Intifada. But there is no pursuit. The army seems disoriented by our sudden move, and there is nothing to stop us marching northwards along a second empty highway. Fortunately the sun, though hot enough, is not as blazing as it was a few days ago. After some five kilometers' march, houses start appearing at the roadside. We are entering the town of Hawarah, a few kilometers south of Nablus, which shares the city's plight under the ongoing curfew.

At the city limits the army has hurriedly set up a roadblock, right before our arrival. Just short of the blockade, the organizers call a halt, to let people at the end of the long column catch up. Then we link arms and walk forward, with the chant ringing out: Peace Yes -- Occupation No! and Shutafenu le Shalom/Hem me'ever laMachsom (our peace partners are on the other side).

Suddenly, in a twinkling, the barrier had been bypassed and we are within Hawarah, continuing along the highway which is here the town's main street. They did not shoot.

When we arrive, the street is almost completely empty, under the strictly enforced curfew. The sign atop a locked shop -- an invitation in Hebrew and English as well as Arabic for tourists to buy "the best and cheapest souvenirs" -- gives mute evidence to better times before the outbreak of violence.

As we walk along, Palestinian inhabitants start coming out and join the march, first timidly, then in growing numbers. Then, we hear shouting and there is a huddle of struggling bodies. On coming closer it turns out that soldiers had suddenly broken into the midst of the march and grabbed one of the Palestinian curfew-breakers, trying to drag him off to detention. Israelis cling to their newly found companion, shouting "Leave him alone! Leave him alone!"

After a few minutes the soldiers give up -- but the scene is repeated again and again up the street, with different groups of soldiers and demonstrators and with the same result.

Suddenly, a changed tactic. One of the Israelis is grabbed, and before his fellows can adjust is pushed directly into a waiting police car. Immediately, hundreds of demonstrators sit down on the asphalt all around the car, blocking the police's way. After a ten minutes' standoff, the police car opens and the detainee -- a bearded, longhaired youngster from Tel-Aviv -- steps out to the sound of cheering.

Just then, we hear a growing chanting in Arabic from the south, back the way we have come: Yaskut Al-Ikhtilal! Yaskut, Yaskut, Yaskut! (Down with the occupation! Down, down, down! in Arabic). The classic battle cry of Palestinians since 1967 is interspersed with Free, free Palestine! in English. Approaching is a solid block of hundreds of the Hawarah townspeople, mostly youths, but with quite a few older men intermingled in between, and with the towns' mayor and notables marching at the front.

The Israeli demonstration changes direction, the last rows linking arms to form a rear guard and shield the approaching Palestinians from the army and police. It does not take long for the two demonstrations to join and merge amidst broad smiles, with hands shaking or lifted aloft in the V-for-Victory sign.

Among the Palestinians we find also several of the international volunteers of ISM, undeterred after two of their number were arrested in Nablus on the previous day, to await deportation for the crime of delivering humanitarian relief.

The steps at the entrance of a grocery store become the podium of an improvised rally. A megaphone is pulled out, with Israeli and Palestinian speakers alternately addressing the crowd.

In the midst of it: a rumbling sound. A whole column of the army's armored personnel carriers is approaching. On a normal day of curfew here, even one or two of these grey armored monsters with the threatening machine-gun snouts would have been enough to clear the street. Today, the APC's pass by in their dozens, each in turn greeted by Israelis and Palestinians shouting together (in Hebrew): Soldier, go home!

The helmeted drivers look aside, pretending not to notice. For a moment, an alternative reality has been created on the dusty street of a Palestinian town -- an island where the daily oppression of the curfew is held back...
info@taayush.org - www.taayush.org; 03-6914437


# For twelve years Dr. Sultan, a dentist from the Israeli Arab town of Tira, has been practising among his Jewish neighbours in nearby Kfar Saba.

Early this year he planned to move his clinic from hired premises in the Kfar Saba industrial zone to a house he purchased at the neighbourhood of Schunat

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Aliya. But shortly after he arrived and mentioned to neighbours the fact of his being an Arab, the house was set on fire and badly damaged.

On the last weekend of August, a group of volunteers spent a whole day cleaning up the mess and doing repairs and painting. The group was organized by The Sharon Forum, a coalition of concerned citizens from Arab and Jewish towns of the Sharon-Muthalath area.

And they didn't only take care of repairs; they also succeeded in getting the attention of the local media, which published it prominently. Two Kfar Saba city councilors, Kabra and Paz (the latter being a deputy mayor) came to visit and the incident was turned into a true local anti-racism event.

Only that Dr. Sultan, though expressing appreciation for the efforts and the good intentions, announced that he would stay in his old premises where he had worked undisturbed. "I am no politician, I just take care of people with aching teeth."

***


Show trial in Tel-Aviv

Oct. 3. Looking back it was just a bit over two years ago -- September 12, 2000. The Peace Tent was erected in the plaza outside the Tel-Aviv Cinemateque, under the slogan Israel and Palestine -- Two States Now! In the list of featured speakers it was no surprise to see the name of Marwan Barghouti, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, together with such speakers as Dalia Rabin, Uri Avnery and Tamar Gozanski... A speaker of fluent Hebrew -- picked up in prison during the first Intifada -- and the personal friend of many Israelis from all over the political spectrum, Barghouti attended innumerable such events during the seven years of the Oslo process -- always emphasizing his firm support for the two-state solution.

Just two weeks later, Ariel Sharon staged his Temple Mount provocation, embroiling the peoples in a cycle of bloodshed which is still far from ended.

And today Marwan Barghouti had another public appearance in Tel-Aviv, just a few streets away from the Cinematheque: a handcuffed prisoner, he was brought to the Tel-Aviv District Court, there to be charged by the state of Israel with heinous acts of terrorism. A number of Gush Shalom activists arrived at the court -- among them Uri and Rachel Avnery -- together with representatives of Machsom-Watch, New Profile, and Women for Peace. We had come two hours in advance to be sure of a place in the courtroom.

After a prolonged wait in front of a locked door, a band of security men emerged to push us far back and announce that admittance would be restricted to those on a list prepared long in advance. The only journalists allowed were those on a specific "pool" -- just when and by whom it was defined was not clear, but quite a few well-known Israeli and foreign journalists found themselves out.

As for the general public, it turned out that "Families of the victims of terrorism" were to be given precedence -- such precedence that once they went in there was no place left for anybody else. ("Sorry, the courtroom is full, no more places inside").

The suicide bombings of the past two years, indiscriminate as they were, have hit at all parts of the Israeli population (the same could be said for the Palestinians killed and wounded in the scarcely less indiscriminate bombings and bombardments by Israeli tanks and aircraft). In the sad ranks of the bereaved families, all political opinions are represented.

But the families selected for the privilege of being present in the courtroom during the Barghouti Trial were all of the extreme right. Thus was produced the scene which we could see on our TV screens tonight: Barghouti, on his entry to the courtroom, meeting a uniformly hostile audience, which throughout the proceedings continued to shout abuse at the accused in the dock and at his lawyers.

Any hint that some parts of the Israeli society had a different attitude was carefully excluded from that courtroom, but not -- as it turned out -- from the media coverage. We were left outside the locked doors -- among the chaotic medley of Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, right-wingers and left-wingers, activists, police and security men, all mixed up in an increasingly heated atmosphere.

The stickers which we wore on our clothing, improvised on the previous evening for exactly the case that we wouldn't be allowed in, bore the slogan Barghouti to negotiations -- not to trial. It drew considerable attention, some of it adverse.

Debates often degenerated into shouting matches and bitter recriminations. We were faced with bereaved family members with genuine grief. But does even grief for a daughter killed in a suicide bombing -- incidentally, one which happened when Barghouti was already behind bars -- justify a woman in rudely shouting at any Palestinian she could see "You are aliens here, foreigners! This is our land and ours only!"

Actually, the outdoors confrontations got as much attention on the TV news as what happened inside the barricaded courtroom, to the chagrin of those who wanted it to be a neat show trial.

The biggest surprise, however, was given by the youngest member of Barghouti's legal team, Advocate Shammai Leibowitz -- like his grandfather, the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an Orthodox Jew adept at unorthodox interpretations of scripture.

"The struggle of the Palestinians to be free of the occupation is reminiscent of the Exodus of our forefathers from Egypt. Moses had killed an Egyptian foreman whom he saw beating a Hebrew slave, and had to flee from Egypt. Later, when he came back and went to Pharaoh's palace to negotiate, the Egyptians did not arrest him for that killing. He went in and out of the palace ten times and still they did not arrest him. He was the representative of his people."

P.S. December 2002. The Barghouti Trial is still going on desultorily, averaging one or two sessions per month, and now getting far less media attention.

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The outright political proclamations already made from the bench by Judge Zvi Gurfinkel, regarding "the murderous, terrorist Palestinian Authority" certainly lent additional credibility to Barghouti's assertion that "The final verdict is already written, whatever I may say" -- and his decision not to conduct any defence or answer any charges.

Meanwhile, the imprisoned activist is evidently able to continue an active and prominent role in Palestinian and regional politics, making from his prison cell highly publicized public pronouncements but reportedly also sending out discreet diplomatic feelers and taking part in intricate negotiations.


Get the Facts to the public

The following was distributed on the internet by Dorothy Naor and describes her unique action outside the court during the Barghouti Trial.

I have long been perturbed by the nearly total silence in the Israeli and international media about daily occurrences in the Occupied Territories such as the number of Palestinians killed, injured (Israeli deaths and injuries are always reported), the amount of land expropriated, the numbers of homes demolished. As a result of this silence, attacks against Israelis appear to be committed in a vacuum.

For instance, few people know that the most recent attacks, which killed eight Israelis in three days, were preceded by a week in which 72 Palestinians were killed by the IDF. Yesterday I decided to do something about the situation, albeit in a very small way, a sort of preliminary step to test the waters.

I had planned to go to the Marwan Barghouti Trial in Tel Aviv. At 7:00 AM the news reported that only a small number of people outfitted with special permits would be allowed into the courtroom; knowing full well that I would not be among these privileged few, I decided to demonstrate at the courthouse entrance holding up a placard with figures showing the numbers of lives lost in the years since the signing of the Oslo agreements. Under the heading Violence Breeds Violence were listed annually the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed from 1993 through 2002.*

The numbers are revealing. Particularly noticeable is the enormous difference between the figures in 1999 when people on both sides still hoped for a settlement and the numbers of those killed since.

Year Palestinians Israelis
1993: 187 Pal 32 Isr
1994: 144 Pal 141 Isr
1995: 48 Pal 47 Isr
1996: 81 Pal 72 Isr
1997: 20 Pal 43 Isr
1998: 27 Pal 18 Isr
1999: 8 Pal 9 Isr
2000[1]: 292 Pal 49 Isr
2001[2]: 1671 Pal 615 Isr

495 Israeli deaths since Sharon came to power!

[1]All after October
[2]Until Sept 29

*Statistics on Palestinian casualties: B'tselem; Israeli casualties: ICT (The International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism -- Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliah).

I had hoped that these figures would give passersby some food for thought, would show the link between the two sides and the enormous increase in lives lost (Palestinian and Israeli) since Sharon became PM. What actually occurred was a different matter. When I arrived, others on the Israeli left who had come to the trial earlier were in the building upstairs outside the courtroom. Consequently, I found myself alone among a group of 50-60 of extreme right-wingers who instantly took offence at the poster. For the hour and 50 minutes that I remained there, I experienced shoving, attempts to hide me and the poster from the view of passers by, attempts to tear the poster out of my hands and to destroy it, as well as a steady stream of verbal abuse.

A leader of the attackers ordered that I be delegitimized. The tactics used to do this included obscuring me from view by waving large Israeli flags in front of my face, covering my poster with theirs (consisting of photographs of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks), and placing their bodies in front of mine, no matter where I stood.

While these attempts were largely successful, they attracted the attention of the media, which rushed to film both the acts of the opposition and the poster, and even resulted in four interviews (BBC, a French reporter, a few questions from the Jerusalem Post reporter, and one unidentified).

This media attention further angered the right-wingers. Ugly abuse was hurled in the air: "I hope your daughter will be killed by a suicide bomber." "I hope you will be killed by a terrorist." "May you be raped." "Go to Canada." "You're a rotten apple. Get out!" is a sampling of the more common sort.

The worst was reserved for the Arabs. I have no intention of repeating it in writing. Although it made no sense to argue with these people, I did not remain entirely silent. I can't say that I won any friends among them when after they complained about how many Israelis had been killed I told them to thank Sharon and his government.

The police's distaste with me was obvious. For the most part they ignored me. On two occasions when the crowd became overly menacing, I shouted for help. In both instances one policeman came, but only to tell me to move on and to stay away from the others. Would have loved to, but unfortunately the others refused to leave me alone.

Finally, a friend from upstairs who had heard that I was downstairs alone came to my aid. After he told the police that they were Fascists they, quite surprisingly, formed a cordon for a few minutes to keep the others from us. As for the media, despite its attention to the poster and myself, I have found no evidence of this in the newspapers or elsewhere. Was it nevertheless worth the doing?

Yes! For one thing, I learned something about myself: I could take abuse and not return it. I could even keep my calm. More important, I learned an important fact: the stark truth -- even when consisting only of bare numbers -- panics right wing extremists.

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They obviously are scared stiff that the public learn the truth and consequently question the lies and deceit being fed it. We therefore have to make every effort not only to inform ourselves, but also to get the data out to the public both in Israel and abroad on placards, on fliers that can be distributed in the market place, on street corners, and in other public places.

We must put on our thinking caps and be creative and find ways to reveal what really goes on here to the uninformed person on the street.


Racist heritage

At the personal initiative of Education Minister Limor Livnat, all Israeli schools were directed to give on October 6 special lessons on the "heritage" of the late Tourism Minister Rahav'am Ze'evi, assassinated a year previously.

Ze'evi, a general turned politician, was a leading proponent of "Transfer" of the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories, which he saw as "the only solution." The call for such a "transfer" was the main plank in the program of the "Moledet" ("Fatherland") party which Ze'evi founded and headed up to his death, and which still continues to vocally advocate the same idea.

An Education Ministry spokesperson told Ma'ariv that the lessons given to Israeli pupils about Ze'evi's "heritage" would not touch upon "politically controversial issues" but concentrate upon the character of Ze'evi as "a devoted patriot and long-serving military man, whose love for his country and dedication to her service make him a model of Zionist ideals."

The Livnat directive aroused considerable protests from various peace and civil rights groups. Hava Keller, a veteran peace activist and retired history teacher of a Tel-Aviv High school, was interviewed on Israeli Second Channel TV -- representing a new initiative of Teachers Against Racism and calling upon teachers to defy the minister's "racist and immoral directive." The TOI- staff took part in the campaign, sending out an appeal for letters of protest to be sent to Minister Livnat.

In the event, it turned out that very many schools all over the country did not hold any lessons on the "Ze'evi Heritage." School principals disclaimed any political consideration for their decision, asserting that "the ministry did not provide a detailed curriculum, necessary to give content to such lessons."


On such days...

Oct. 8. In the months since "Operation Defensive Shield" we had to get used to not being able to react to each and every infuriating and appalling new item of bad news. Things about which we would have been up in arms two years ago had become a daily reality: the total reconquest of the West Bank cities and the piecemeal reconquest of the ones in the Gaza Strip, the ongoing curfews and closures and extreme hardships for an entire population, the nightly military raids and arrests of Palestinians pronounced to be "wanted terrorists" (proof is never given), the "accidental" killing of civilians -- a routine occurrence in these raids, the grabbing of land by ever bolder settlers...

Still, what happened the day before, Oct. 7, was a bit extreme even by the new standards: getting up with the morning news of the major raid into Khan Yunes which left nine Palestinians dead, with the reported death toll rising at each following news broadcast: twelve, thirteen, fourteen -- all accompanied by sickening military communiques of "a successful strike against terrorism"...

On such days activists start phoning each other: -- "This is really beyond all limits! We must do something!" -- "What can we do?" -- "We have to go to the Ministry of Defence, already today! We must not wait!" -- "The Ministry of Defence, again! The same people in the same place as always? We have to think of something new, something original, something which will get more attention!" -- "That's nice, but what?"

This time, the first to overcome the hesitations and take a decision was Peace Now, who called for picketing the Defence Ministry at 6.00 PM. It did not take Gush Shalom long to decide upon joining, and to start a frantic series of emailing, faxing and phone calls to anyone who could be expected to come at short notice.

We arrived at the spot itself some ten minutes before the designated hour -- to find the small dingy parking lot opposite Israel's military complex already packed with more than a hundred protesters. Most of them were young, though with a sprinkling of grey- and white-haired veterans of the peace movement.

In these far from optimistic days, it is a heart-warming sight to see the emerging new generation, the youths with their high morale and confident, loud chanting of radical slogans:

We refuse to be murderers!
Neither Sharon nor Bush, Down with the Occupation!
Fuad, Sharon, Peres -- Where is the Security?
Occupation is Terrorism -- The Refuser is the Hero!
IDF in Gaza means bombings in Tel-Aviv
The occupation is killing everybody!
Stop killing children!
Booggie, you fascist!
Fuad, Fuad, how many kids did you kill today?
All the ministers are war criminals!
Sharon -- they wait for you in the Hague!
No occupation -- no suicide bombings
Get out of the Territories
Children should play, not die!
We refuse to murder children!

Some of the Peace Now organizers were visibly agitated at slogans, which they considered too radical. (To be fair, while inviting everybody else to join, they asked in advance not to use slogans with the explicit words "war crime").

But the divide was far less clear on the grassroots level. The Meretz Youths seemed to mingle freely with the young Anarchists and the High-school Group (Shministim), of which several members at that very moment were undergoing terms in the military prisons for their refusal to serve the occupation.


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All youths, whatever their affiliation, joined in singing what has become in recent months an unofficial anthem: Arik has conquered Nablus and Hebron/ He is conquering Gaza and Rafah/ A bullet in the barrel, and a madman in the turret / The soldiers are returning in coffins (ironically, sung to the tune of a highly militaristic song of 1967, whose original is almost forgotten).

The vigil was more than halfway through when a lone policeman made his way to the front rank and asked: "Who is responsible here?" to get the answer: "Sharon is responsible!" accompanied by a general burst of laughter. He beat a confused retreat.

Shortly afterwards, two full carloads of police and one of security guards arrived and hastily deployed around the Defence Ministry gate on the other side of the road -- to make sure, perhaps, that we won't build an illegal settlement, or what...
www.peacenow.org.il - pob 8159, Jerusalem
www.gush-shalom.org - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv
www.shiministim.org - pob 70094, Haifa


From the square to the orchard

Saturday night Nov. 2, the Rabin Memorial Rally at Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square. Also this year, a major gathering of peace-minded Israelis, in which all self-respecting peace groups feel bound to make a presence -- but as in previous years, an ambiguous event in which your participation is hedged with reservations about the program.

At least, attending this year's rally -- unlike those of the past two years -- did not involve the emotional wrench of having to listen to a keynote speaker directly involved in the war against the Palestinians -- PM Ehud Barak in the rally of November 2000; Dalia Rabin-Filosof, Deputy Defence Minister in 2001.

In retrospect she herself, the daughter of Yitzchak Rabin, may have felt uncomfortable; she resigned from the government a few months later, a step which marked a beginning of internal pressures and grassroots resurgence in the Labor Party.

However officially touted as "non-partisan" this year's Rabin Rally, the seventh, was in a way the first manifestation of a new political reality. In other times, the enormous sign We Believe in Peace over the podium may have been only a cliche or pious wish; in the Israel of November 2002 it was just a bit more: a crowd of about 100,000 mostly young people defying the trend of 'peace is dead'.

The organizers, though, had gone to considerable trouble to obscure the identity of Israel's partner for peace -- featuring filmed addresses from King Abdullah of Jordan, President Mubarak of Egypt and Former US President Clinton, while pointedly neglecting to let any Palestinian speak; and the historic handshake between Rabin and Arafat featured only in the stickers distributed in big quantity by Gush Shalom, not in any of the organizers' posters and banners.

But there were quite a few moments of dissidence -- some on the podium, some in the crowd, quite a few in the interaction between the two: the explicit anti- occupation signs conspicuous among the medley of banners and placards visible in the square, Hashomer Hatzair youth fights the occupation; and Get out of the Territories! and Refusal to serve the occupation is the true Zionism; and the upwelling applause to actress Anat Gov's words 'The right- wingers try to criminalize us, to put all blame for the country's woes on the 'criminals of Oslo'; well, better to be a peace criminal than a war criminal'; Singer Aviv Gefen calling upon "everybody who has had enough of the occupation" to raise their arms, and getting a resounding response.

Several peace groups -- Bat Shalom, Gush Shalom, Kvisa Sh'hora, Women's Peace Coalition -- took up a specific issue which had gotten far less than its fair share of public attention: "The Separation Fence" -- "fence" being an euphemism for what is in fact being erected as a monstrous 8-metre high concrete wall, sealing off the West Bank towns and villages near to the '67 border.

This project is often welcomed as both a panacea preventing the entry of suicide bombers into Israel and the beginning of a "separation process" which will supposedly lead to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state -- with little attention given to such details as that the monster wall is being laid along a line cutting through the agricultural lands of dozens of Palestinian villages, effectively annexing enormous swaths of territory to Israel.

Also, while being enclosed within an enormous wall would make the West Bank even more of a prison camp than it already is, it does not at all automatically lead to Israeli withdrawal. It didn't in the Gaza Strip, which is already for years enclosed by a similar construction.

So, throughout the rally there were activists circulating among the crowd -- the largest gathering of peace camp grassroots supporters in the year -- distributing leaflets on the iniquities and dangers of the Separation Wall.

Dozens of others held aloft large banners on which the bricks of a wall were painted with the slogan The Evil Fence -- Ghetto for Palestinians, Disaster for Israelis. With more than twenty of them held side by side, a quite realistic image of a wall was created in the center of the square.

As it happened, on the very next day we became involved in one of the concrete cases. An urgent phone call and request for help came from Falami, a place of which few of us heard before. One of the building contractors for The Wall had, without prior announcement, started to lay a swath of destruction across its fields and olive orchards.

So it was that early Monday morning representatives of Gush Shalom and Bat Shalom, altogether four, found themselves in a small van en route to a completely different world lying just half an hour's drive from Tel-Aviv.

First crossing the unmarked, but somehow very obvious Green Line; a drive along a main West Bank

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highway, nowadays reserved for settler use and lined with signs promising "The House of your dreams" at various settlements; then stopping at the entrance to a side-road, closed off from the highway by huge concrete blocks, to prevent Palestinian cars from using it; then a drive in a Palestinian taxi along a winding hilly track from one village to another; then Falami, our destination, a neat village of some 600 inhabitants.

A man with a traditional headdress, who turns out to be the mayor, insists on letting us have breakfast in his home. On a cursory glance, Falami seems a bit better off than many other places in the West Bank. That is because up to now they had enough land -- and an irrigation project making good use of these lands -- to live mainly from agriculture. All that is now under immediate threat.

We go into a car, and travel through a pastoral landscape. Suddenly, we could here shouts ahead. Further on the unpaved road, a crowd of villagers, with some 25 internationals scattered among them, are shouting about something happening on the further side of the road, vehemently remonstrating with somebody there. When we come closer we can see: on the other side, an olive grove is being systematically destroyed.

The man with the chainsaw was deft and efficient. First the side-branches were lopped off one by one, then the central bole, and then off to the next tree. It did not take him more than two of three minutes to destroy a tree. He was guarded by eight armed men -- four "Border Guards" in khaki, four private security guards in dark blue. With each tree he tackled they spread all around, their rifles pointing outwards.

Gradually, we started getting off the road and coming closer. Verbal admonitions were clearly utterly useless towards this crew. They either ignored them or answered with obscenities. Some of us started running ahead of them, getting to still undamaged trees and holding on to them.

The man with the chain saw got angry: "Get off, fucking leftist bastards! I am going to cut off the tree. If you get in the way, that's your lookout!" He did lop off the outer branches. Then he hesitated and started cursing his private and state guardians: "Go on, go on, get rid of these interfering bastards! I ain't got all day!."

The guards tried (and succeeded with some of us). They were beating, dragging, kicking, using rifle butts -- the private security guards (who legally have no right to use force) being the most violent. Still, the bole of an olive tree is exactly the right size to be hugged and held on to with all one's might...

There were some moments of dialogue of a kind. If he is to be believed, the man with the saw was especially angry because he felt we were trying to deprive him of the first job he got after a long time of unemployment. "And anyway, if I don't do it, somebody else will." (An old argument, as was the Border Guards' "I am just obeying orders.")

After a time, they just seemed to decide to leave us where we were and go on to other trees -- which seemed an effective tactic, since there were more trees than activists to protect them.

But still, better hold on to the one tree you were hugging, holding on and on and not relaxing. For a very long half hour, the universe seemed to shrink to the scope of a single olive tree with half its branches already lopped off.

Gradually, one became aware that the sickening sound of the saw had ceased, and that something was going on the road above. As we learned via the cellphone, an official of the special governmental agency charged with creating the wall had arrived, and negotiations were going on.

It turned out that the contractor was supposed to cease work pending the arrival of the French Consul on the following day, to discuss the fate of the irrigation project which the French government had built in this village. Anyway, the result of the negotiations was an all clear. It was possible to come out of the trees. We had saved them, at least for one or two days.

On the following morning, the village looked quite different. When we arrived (seven Israelis this time) the Falami school children were strung out on parade along the street, having just greeted the village's important guest on his arrival. The Consul was already inside -- one of the East Jerusalem consuls, who are de-facto ambassadors to Palestine.

When we got in, the mayor was extolling the French-installed irrigation system: 'Our land has become a paradise. We grow everything: apricots and cucumbers and citrus, anything you want. We have good land and the water. Now our people see everything taken away.'

After the meeting, the consul was taken to see for himself. A procession was formed. The consul, a good-looking tall man in a neat blue suit asking attentive questions in fluent Arabic, was accompanied by village notables and representatives of Palestinian NGO's arrived from Nablus and Ramallah, and followed through the main street by a crowd of villagers mixed with internationals and Israelis. Two young men brought up the rear, one holding aloft the French Tricolor and the other -- the Palestinian Black-White-Red-and-Green.

From the top of a blockhouse, the Palestinians pointed out the details of the impending destruction: "The wall will pass through that green field, cutting it in half. All the further fields will be lost to us. The hothouses, over there, will be destroyed. The well will remain on the other side. We will have no control over what comes through the pipes."

The government claims that Palestinian farmers will be allowed to work their fields on the other side. From experience (as when Palestinian farmland was enclosed within a settlement's perimeter fence, and a similar promise given) the Palestinians are highly skeptical. A representative of the Agricultural Relief Committees spreads a map of the Separation Wall's entire planned course: 'Everywhere, they try to grab the ground water. That is the main consideration, not security. It is an old plan, but now they are actually implementing it.' (Continued on p. 18)

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I am no occupier, full stop
Uri Ya'acobi

Here follows a letter to the editor, published in all the main Israeli papers. Uri Ya'acobi (18) is one of the Shiministim who announced long in advance their refusal to serve in the army. Uri sent it the day before his enlistment, on August 15. He is since then in jail.

In another two days I am not going to enlist.

I will go the Soldiers House, and will board the bus together with all other conscription candidates, and after we get off the bus at the Induction Center in Tel Hashomer, I will, unlike the others, refuse to enlist, and I will almost certainly be sent to prison. In the prison I will meet two of the fellow signatories of "the letter of the high school pupils" -- Yoni Yechezkel and Dror Boimel.

Those two were imprisoned the last week -- because of their own refusal to enlist. They, just like me, and as it turns out: like a lot of other Israelis, understand that this war which the state of Israel is conducting, in the territories that it occupied in '67, is not a war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness (not so different from many more wars which took place in the course of history).

When we hear via foreign media of Israeli tanks rampaging in the streets of Palestinian cities (for some reason it's hardly ever on the news of the Israeli media), then we don't hear the whole truth. The sad truth is that what the Israeli army does in the territories is not limited to tanks rampaging in the streets and the destruction of the civilian infrastructure. The military actions are also not limited to delaying ambulances and pregnant women at roadblocks or just insensitivity towards Palestinian citizens. Our soldiers find themselves in difficult situations, and part of them do it by mistake, but they do kill children and old people who certainly are in no way connected to any act of terrorism. They destroy houses of whole families -- and perpetrate other acts for which "terrorism" is the most fitting definition.

All these are unforgivable acts in which I and my friends refuse to participate. These things are against justice. And no reason in the world, certainly not the wish to colonize another piece of land, turns them into justified acts from the moral point of view, just as terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians are not right, nor morally justified.

I don't know whether the Palestinian leadership wants peace, I don't know whether the Palestinians want to remain forever poor and discriminated against (although it is difficult to believe that they would). I do know one thing: that the Palestinians don't want us to be their occupiers.

I know that they don't want to live in a war situation and to see the continuous bloodshed. I know it is not them who force us to occupy them; it's not them who turn us into occupiers. We do that quite nicely all by ourselves, without their help.

I am not proud of my people. I am not proud of my country, I am not proud of the acts being done in the name of my security. I am also not proud that I will go to prison because of my refusal to serve in the occupation army (and I am also not at all happy about the opportunity given me to suffer for my principles).

Proud I am that I listen to the voice of my conscience, and I will be glad when there will be more people listening to theirs, and not to what says the commander.


Off we go to prison cell
Analysis of the wave of conscientious objection
by Adam Keller

October 24 morning -- an unusual scene outside the IDF Induction Center at Tel Hashomer, an eastern suburb of Tel Aviv: dozens of youths walking in procession, singing to the strains of a guitar: No, thank you, Mr. Sharon/ Go yourself to Hebron!/ Damn your schemes all to hell/ Off we go to prison cell.

The red-haired youth walking in front was Haggai Matar, whose call-up date had come that morning. Some ten metres before the installation's gates, a cordon of military police prevented the procession from going further. Haggai bade farewell to his friends with handshakes and some kisses, and went through the gate.

Inside, there awaited him a routine which is becoming familiar to an increasing number of young Israelis -- hearing the formal order to enlist; making clear one's refusal to serve in an army of occupation (in fact, the induction officers already know, from letters sent to them long in advance); undergoing an "instant trial" of less than five minutes; going off to Military Prison 4, where several earlier refusers are already waiting.

A new generation is making itself increasingly felt in the Israeli peace movement. They have been born at the end of the Lebanon War, and were small children when the first Intifada broke out -- leaving some with a childhood memory of visiting an imprisoned father at the military jail.

When Oslo was signed they were still children, and as they became teenagers and started developing a political consciousness of their own, the promise of the peace process was turning increasingly sour. The approach of the age of 18, with the concomitant prospect of induction into the army, came upon them just as that same army had become more openly and blatantly brutal then ever before.

It was among these young people that the "The High School Letter" (Shministim in Hebrew) was drafted and circulated a year ago, originally gaining the support of 62 youths facing conscription and by now bearing the signatures of nearly 300. It's quite a heterogeneous group, some declaring refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories while others oppose military service altogether, some motivated by pacifism and others by specific objections to the specific occupation and the way the army is enforcing it, with anarchists, revolutionary socialists, vegetarians or vegans -- all together committed to solidarity with and support of imprisoned fellows of whatever shade.

There had never been anything quite like it before.

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The pioneering first effort at such a group, way back in 1979-81, never got more than 35 signatories on their letter (which was considered an enormous achievement at the time). In the intervening decades, most refusers of military service in Israel had been reservists rather than conscripts.

The situation at the time of writing, where among 16 currently imprisoned refusers the conscripts are by far the majority, is quite unprecedented. A group of this size is big enough to provide a supporting social milieu, a kind of very specific young refuser culture with its own jokes and sons sung by youthful singers and groups. ("What have we here? said the doctor/ Hates violence, disgusted with the army, won't touch a gun?/ Seems pretty sane to me/ No grounds for psychiatric discharge".)

The youngsters managed to transform the tradition of demonstrating on the mountain over the Atlit Military Prison, which started before they were born, by choosing to camp there for a whole weekend -- sitting around a fire at nights, having a good time, but also seriously discussing issues of importance to those bound to be behind the walls visible below:

Should a prisoner, who wants to have nothing to do with the army, obey the order to wash dishes in the prison kitchen? (General view: yes, it helps fellow prisoners). Should he agree to stand guard over other prisoners, a common practice in the military jail? (By no means!). Should a refuser accept a psychiatric discharge as a way out of the army? (Hotly debated).

As 2002 wore on, the induction dates for more and more members of the group came due, landing them one by one behind bars. For the earlier ones, the army acted according to an unofficial but seemingly invariable policy: a CO was subjected to about 90 days of imprisonment, in installments of 14 to 28 days, and was then referred to the army's "Incompatibility Commission" which usually offered a discharge without too much fuss. But in the later months the policy was abruptly toughened -- apparently because the growing number of conscript refusers started alarming somebody at the higher echelons.

For many years, the army leadership assumed that it was mainly reservists from whom "trouble" could be expected when they are sent to controversial places and duties, while conscripts would be more docile and tractable.

This assumption worked well in Lebanon -- where the stationing of reserve units between 1982 and 1985 bred an active refusal movement while there were virtually no cases of refusals among the conscripts who held the territory from 1985 to the final withdrawal of 2000. It would be highly inconvenient, from the generals' point of view, to find the "disease" in danger of spreading.

Nor was it only a matter of the politically articulate refusers and CO's; imprisoned Shministim found themselves greatly outnumbered by other youths, whose refusal to serve in the army or in combat units resulted from gut feeling with no clear ideology behind; and the army's own published figures indicate a significant rise in the desertion rate -- especially among soldiers from poor families, who escape from the army to help their families, hard-hit by the economic crisis.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, the results were clearly visible: CO's are no longer let out quietly after 90 days behind bars, but kept on in what seems an imprisonment of totally indefinite duration. The first to experience the new policy were Yoni Ben-Artzi, and Uri Ya'akobi -- who at the time of writing have gotten to a total of, respectively, 161 and 133 days, with no idea of how much longer they will have to spend in the military prison.

The harsher policy tended to draw more attention to the issue, which was hitherto mostly ignored by the Israeli media (only Ben Artzi got some attention, and that mostly for the piquant reason that he happens to be the nephew of former PM and present FM Binyamin Netanyahu). Ben Artzi and Ya'akobi were recognized as Prisoners of Conscience by Amnesty International, which wrote a sharply worded protest on their behalf (and on behalf of refusers and CO's in general) to Defence Minister Mofaz. The issue of the indefinite repeated imprisonment was also taken up by ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel), which hitherto hesitated to touch questions of military refusal.

On December 19, the veteran Yesh Gvul and the Shministim jointly organized a solidarity meeting in Tel-Aviv. Regardless of the inclement weather, the Tzavta Hall was packed as laureates of the prestigious Israel Prize (former minister Shulamit Aloni, poets Meir Wiezeltir, sculptor Menashe Kadishman, composer Arik Shapiro, philosopher Yirmiyahu Yovel, actress Hana Meron, graphic artist David Tartakover) took the podium, one by one, to express outrage at the way the CO's are treated.

The Bavel Publishing House announced that they provide free reading material to the imprisoned refusniks. In Ha'aretz, Prof. Ze'ev Sternhal wrote: "The continued imprisonment of Yoni Ben-Artzi and Uri Ya'akobi is a badge of infamy on Israel's brow" (Op-ed column, Dec. 20). For his part, poet Aharon Shabtai dedicated a new poem to Haggai Matar: 'Zion, prostituted by the generals, can purify herself in your humble prison cell and there found a New Temple.'


A personal note

I would have written the above article exactly as it stands, even if I had no personal involvement. These courageous young people deserve every bit of publicity and support they can get. Still, it is fair to acknowledge that I do have a personal stake in the matter. Uri Ya'akobi, who is nearing half a year of imprisonment now, with still not the slightest idea of when it will end, and with whom I just talked on the phone, happens to be my son.

I did not have the privilege of raising him myself on a day-to-day basis. Still, me and my wife have been visiting him and his mother every week or two, and seeing him grow and develop from child to boy and to a young man -- a young man who knows his own mind and who already needs to bear the burden of difficult decisions, and of whom I am immensely proud.

Uri has chosen to be a pacifist, to completely reject service not only in the concrete Israeli army and the dirty war in which it is involved, but in any armed force

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anywhere and at any time. It is not my own view, but it is a highly respectable one -- perhaps a natural one for a young person growing up in the midst of the terrible violent mess which my generation, with all our efforts, did not succeed in sparing him [AK].

Shministim, pob 70094 Haifa; www.shministim.org
Yesh Gvul, pob 4620, J'lem; www.yesh-gvul.org

Letters of protest to:
Colonel Dvorah Chassid
Commander of the Army Induction Center
fax number 972-3-737-60-52
(Or use the postcard enclosed with this issue.)


No dispute with the General

The prestigious Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Israeli Ministry of Justice sponsored "a public dialogue" entitled SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

The event was to take place Thursday, Dec. 12, at Van Leer's premises in the framework of the International Week of Human Rights. The speakers included such people as Mr. Aharon Barak, President of the Israeli Supreme Court and General Menachem Finkelstein, the Chief Military Prosecutor together with some academic experts, and the discussion was to be moderated by Dr. Michael Vigode, Director of the Department of Jewish Law at the Israeli Ministry of Justice.

The public was explicitly invited, in newspapers ads, to participate.

Some 200 people showed up for the dialogue. Among them were Ofra and Matania Ben-Artzi, the parents of Jonathan Ben-Artzi, the longest serving CO.

As the discussion was about to start, the Ben-Artzis distributed a flyer to the participants (text below).

Shimon Alon, director of the Van Leer Institute, seemed not to appreciate this form of "public participation" and demanded that they leave, but they insisted on their right to take part in an open, public event.

Since Supreme Court President Mr. Barak excused himself at the last minute, the first speaker was Gen. Finkelstein. He repeated the IDF claim of holding the highest moral ground in what he described as "an armed conflict against terror". He claimed that civilian casualties on the Palestinian side (to which he constantly referred as the "other side") result from "legitimate acts of war by the IDF" and are therefore "non-prosecutable" even though they are investigated for "operational reasons."

When Gen. Finkelstein finished this very one-sided presentation, Prof. M. Ben-Artzi stood up and demanded the right of speech.

Director Alon and his deputies didn't have to think long: with the aid of security guards, they jumped on Prof. Ben-Artzi, tore the papers from his hands and began dragging him forcefully off the stage. Ofra Ben-Artzi and Gideon Spiro, who approached the scene, were rudely shoved away. The whole event took place in front of the panelists and the audience, who remained (except for a handful of people) totally passive. Prof. Ben-Artzi's eyeglasses were broken as he was finally thrown out of the lecture hall.

In a matter of minutes, a big police force arrived (who says there is a lack of manpower?) as well as some agents in civilian clothes who made no secret of being operatives of the Shabak (Secret Service). The Van Leer director pressed charges of trespassing against Ben-Artzi, whereas the latter announced that he would file complaints of physical injury against the Van Leer management. The Police ordered Prof. Ben-Artzi to leave the building.
Matania Ben-Artzi, +972-2-6528037; mbartzi@math.huji.ac.il

Text distributed by Ofra and Matania Ben-Artzi:

Aharon Barak and Menachem Finkelstein,

You are celebrating here today the 'International Week of Human Rights' -- a hypocritical and sanctimonious festival.

This same week, millions of people are subjected to a cruel and brutal occupation. You put on it a facade of justice and enlightenment

This same week, more than seven thousand people are locked up in detention camps, deprived of minimal humane conditions. They have never been brought to court. You are responsible for that.

This same week, and since many years, the ewe-lamb of the poor is robbed by an evil, war seeking hand. Across the fields of Samaria, the dogs lick up the blood of Naboth. You never stopped them.

This same week, you threw in jail clear-eyed and pure-hearted boys. Their only sin was that they followed their conscience.

You know that you will not silence their voice. You know they will win.

The Chronicles of Mankind will tell you that.

When the prophet Isaiah said: 'He eagerly looked for justice, but see, bloodshed! For righteousness, and lo, a cry of distress', he was referring to you. You will not escape the day of requital

'All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing' (Edmund Burke).

'The world stands on three pillars: The truth, the justice and the peace.. And these three are indeed one. When justice is served, truth is served, peace is served' (Rabbi Shimon Ben-Gamliel, Talmudic sage).


CO's jailed, rights violators walk free

Amnesty International sent the following letter to Defence Minster Shaul Mofaz, and made it public on Dec.18.

Amnesty International would like to express concern over the imprisonment of Israeli conscripts and reservists who refuse to perform military service or to serve in the Occupied Territories, as they believe that by doing so they would contribute to, or participate in, human rights violations.

Some 180 conscientious objectors and refuseniks have been jailed in the past 26 months. Members of the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) who commit grave human rights violations and war crimes, such as killing children and other unarmed civilians, recklessly shooting and shelling densely populated residential areas or blowing up houses on top of people and leaving them to die under the rubble are neither brought to justice nor held accountable for their acts.

At the same time, conscripts and reservists who refuse to serve, precisely to avoid participating in such acts, are sent to jail for months. What kind of message is such a policy sending to Israeli society?

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The impunity enjoyed by IDF members responsible for human rights violations and the imprisonment of conscientious objectors are grave concerns, each in their own right; the combination of both constitutes an extremely worrying trend.

Conscripts who make it known that they are unwilling to serve on grounds of conscience and because they believe that the army is committing human rights violations are imprisoned, whereas other conscripts are routinely granted deferral or exemption from performing military service on religious grounds.

Draft resisters Jonathan Ben-Artzi and Uri Ya'acobi are presently serving their sixth consecutive prison sentences for refusing to serve in the Israeli army because of their conscientiously held beliefs. They have until now been sentenced to a total of 161 and 134 days respectively.

Amnesty International believes that all conscientious objectors should be given the opportunity to present the grounds of their objection to a decision-making body which is established by law and is impartial and independent. The draft resisters and refuseniks who are and have been imprisoned as a result of their conscientious objection are prisoners of conscience. Those currently detained should be released immediately and unconditionally.
AI, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK; www.amnesty.org


Visible and invisible prisons

CO Matan Kaminer wrote the following a few days before his imprisonment on Dec.9; it was quoted by poet Nathan Zach at the Dec.19 refusal event.

Freedom is, among other things: Riding the bus and looking at the sea or reading a book, totally at ease. Walking the land and knowing each part of it, without knowing fear. Meeting new people of all sorts and becoming friends. Finding a job I like and which pays a living wage. Studying what I want to without having to pay a fortune. Being glad in Israel's human variety without worrying about so-called demographic or economic threats. Walking down the street, or waiting for the light to change, or standing in line at the supermarket, without being drowned in commercials. Hearing the news without hearing about innocent people getting killed.

A place without freedom is a prison. Israel today is a prison.

The worst kind of prison is the invisible kind. We cannot see our prison, not because it's bewitched but because we are blind. Our capacity to sense suffering has been blinded.

First we were blinded to the suffering of people who look very different from us: they live up in the mountains, they wear mustaches and veils, and they apparently hate us because we are more beautiful and intelligent than they are.

Then we were blinded to the suffering of people who look more like us, and even talk our language, albeit in strange accents. But I guess they're not as able as us, and that's why they have no jobs and their children have no food.

Lastly, we have been blinded to our own suffering. We've been convinced that we don't really suffer -- what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and hey, we're not dead yet. We've been blinded to think that our agony is pleasure, and that depression is fun.

The most suffocating kind of prison is made of glass.

Today I'll be going to another kind of prison, a kind made of cement and tent canvas, of barbed wire fences and the uniforms of prison guards. It's called Military Prison No. 4. I'm glad to be going because, finally, my prison will be visible. I'll do my time in this visible prison for a few months, for refusing to enlist to Israel's academy for prison guards: the IDF, Israel's "Defense Forces" which have been imprisoning an entire people for thirty-five years.

In Military Prison No. 4 I may develop a miraculous sense of sight. From staring at the fabric of my tent I might gain the ability to see fabrics of deceit. Looking at cement walls may teach me to recognize the walls separating human beings. Seeing barbed wire may bring me understanding of the wiring by which people are controlled.

Hope and experience both show that sight is an infectious trait. My goal is an epidemic of seeing people who will tear down the walls of separation with their sense of sight. They will use their vision to rip away the canvasses of lies, and cut the wires of exploitation with their eyes. Military Prison No. 4 already holds a few people who are trying to see, sitting and looking and waiting for me to join. In the schools and on the buses, in the refugee camps and the factories, on the streets and at the roadblocks and in the offices, thousands of seeing people are already infecting their neighbors with the seeing virus.

Soon a critical mass of seeing people will have collected. All of a sudden, everyone will be able to see the prison. Even the guards will realize that they, too, are prisoners.

And the prison will be gone.

***


# Sept.4, Lieutenant (Res.) David Zonsheine and seven other IDF combat reserve soldiers, four of whom are also officers, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court. The petitioners, members of Ometz Lesarev (Courage to Refuse), received prison terms but claim that their refusal to serve in the occupied territories is legal and imperative, because the entire occupation has become illegal over the past two years.

The petition includes 26 reports from 14 different organizations that have monitored the occupation as well as 20 affidavits submitted by officers and soldiers that have served in the Occupied Territories during the current Intifada. "If the IDF wants to continue to punish soldiers who refuse to take part in the occupation and these violations it needs to prove the legality of the occupation," declared Adv. Michael Sfard. So far no verdict was rendered.
Courage to Refuse: www.seruv.org.il

# During October, dozens of reservists -- a large part of them members of elite units -- started holding regular weekly vigils in Tel-Aviv, calling upon the government to stop sending them to

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guard illegal West Bank settlements. The organizers also circulated a petition to the Prime Minster with the same demand. Amit Harel, one of the organizers, told Ha'aretz: 'We are not refusers. I personally fought in Operation Defensive Wall, back in April. I think that you should obey orders, as long as they are legal -- even if you don't like them. But by the same token, the government should also obey the law and prevent the settlers from breaking it, instead of ordering soldiers to guard the law-breakers.'


(Continuation from p.12)

From there the procession moves to another sector: the scene of yesterday's clash at the olive grove, which is inspected by the visiting diplomat.

Everything is as it was left on the previous day, the destroyed trees and the undamaged ones -- even the strewn pieces of our placards, torn to pieces by the security guards. Then he got into his car and drove off.

There was some confusion as to what comes next. The consul was going to have a crucial meeting with the government officials in charge of building the Wall, and take up the issue of the Falami lands. The officials had refused to meet him in the village itself, judging the place "too dangerous" and the meeting was to be held somewhere in the open fields.

While still standing there a movement became visible among the trees of the ravaged olive grove. Soldiers appeared, moving purposefully in a skirmish line, their guns at the ready. We linked arms, preparing to offer passive resistance to an eviction order -- but the soldiers moved past, studiously ignoring our presence. We continued standing and waiting -- when suddenly the elements intervened, a cloud moved across what had been a scorching sun, and the first thunderstorm and heavy rain of the year found us standing in the open field.

Fortunately, the Palestinians pointed out nearby a low-ceilinged cave -- apparently being used as a sheepfold. For an hour Palestinians, Israelis and internationals sat huddled together, some dozing, a few turning on squeaking radios. It was there that we heard of the Sharon Government's fall and the scheduling of new elections. The Italians, who seemed to predominate among the international contingent, started singing an old partisan song; soon the others joined the catchy tune and the clapping.

Gradually, people started drifting out, though the rain had by no means fully abated. The news filtered around: the meeting for which we had waited was taking place a few hundred metres up the track.

We moved in that direction, determined to make our presence felt -- and encountered the soldiers. "No, no, forbidden. It is security, the French Parliament is here. Security!" shouted a young sergeant.

There we were, blocked in the drenching rain. A bit ahead of us we could make out a square, heavy car, light gray in color, with a winking yellow strobe light on top. Not far from it, another grey car with the initials T.V. marked largely with white tape. (The reporter of a French network has shown a remarkable devotion to duty, going on to take his footage in the heaviest of rain.)

An army jeep pulled up -- and got promptly stuck in the mud. All further efforts merely stuck it deeper and deeper. And suddenly everybody -- peace protesters, villagers and blocking soldiers alike -- burst out laughing, there in the drenching rain.

Epilogue: The consul's meeting with the officials, on which the Falami villagers pinned so much hope, ended in failure. The officials' mandate was limited -- or so they said -- to discussing "The laying of irrigation pipes under the fence, once it is completed." For any deviation from the track defined for "the Fence" itself, they referred him to the political echelon, to Sharon personally or the newly-appointed acting Defence Minister Mofaz -- and meanwhile, the army declared the respite over and allowed the contractors to move back in.

So, by the time you read this, the olive grove over which we struggled may have been already completely devastated, and the bulldozers may be cutting a swathe of destruction through the beautiful green fields where we walked yesterday.

The politics of harvest

The following is excerpted from a report by Rabbi Arik Asherman of RHR (Rabbis for Human Rights).

(...) For a consecutive three days, settlers from Kfar Tapuach had been simply stealing the olives from trees belonging to the Palestinian villagers, while security forces did very little to stop them. Moreover, on Tuesday an English volunteer helping the harvest was shot at. The police didn't do much about that either. Repeated phone calls from myself, other activists and even Knesset Members did very little.

At various points on Wednesday military and police officers and patrols showed up. The police told me that the situation was "under control", but the settlers worked on in the Palestinian orchards. Some of our friends, Palestinians who had taken risks within their society to continue working non- violently with Israelis, saw the settlers harvesting their olives with impunity and were questioning whether there was any further point to our work together.

"Friends stand together, don't they?" On Wednesday, RHR called for an emergency olive tree harvest in Yassuf for the following day. Activists from ICAHD, Ta'ayush, Peace Now and Gush Shalom cleared their schedules when they heard what had been going on.

On Thursday morning we gathered at the gas station of Kafr Qasem, just inside the green line. The emergency timing of this action left us time for no more than hasty consultations, not to plan out fully the appropriate non-violent reactions to the different possible scenarios. (The man at the falafel stall, who heard our plans, refused to accept payment for the food.)

A police unit rushed in as they saw us, activists and journalists, threading our way through the familiar mounds of dirt barricading the village. They asked if we had a permit to be there, to which we replied that we had been invited by the villagers and there was no

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need for a permit. They said it was a closed military area, but had no written order to prove it. Meanwhile, most of the group was well into the village, and I invited the police to show us a closure order if and when they found one.

Rumors flew about the village that settlers or soldiers were coming, as we made our way in the direction of the fields. Our hosts pointed out the network of settlements, with their new outposts, surrounding this village of 2,000.

We passed through the elaborate irrigation system for family plots near the village, which had been expanded during the Intifada. People shut in the village hadn't had much else to do. Some told us that these small patches of vegetables and fruit trees had become their primary source of food. In a different time, these cool pathways shaded by overarching trees could have easily become a tourist attraction.

We began to see a number of soldiers approaching us as we neared the olive trees. However, initially they did just what they were supposed to do - watching over us as villagers spread out plastic sheeting beneath the trees, ready to receive the olives picked from the branches. (Near some of the trees we could see many olives lying scattered on the ground, a reminder of the settler activity on the previous days).

As we worked, more and more armed settlers were gathering around. They screamed at the soldiers, calling them "traitors not worthy to be called Jews" because they were "defending these suicide bombers".

This was an effective strategy. First the police and army asked for reinforcement, and when it did not arrive they started pressuring us. The police commander demanded that we abandon the first row of trees and promised us that we could continue further in. He said we had to do it, because "otherwise the situation will get out of control."

I argued with him. I explained we were there only because the police hadn't done their job on the preceding days, and did not defend the landowners' right to pick olives from their own trees on their own land. Why is he threatening us when we are involved in a completely legal and peaceful act? It seems the police decided it is easier to move peaceful and unarmed Palestinians and Israeli activists than to touch hysterical settlers with guns and dogs.

The outcome was that we got another ten minutes to finish up the row as best as we could, and then we would have to retreat. At this moment Angie Zelter saw the two settlers who had fired on her two days earlier. She requested that the police identify the two men. The commander flatly refused. Evidently he did not want a confrontation with the settlers, whatever the issue.

Just as we began moving back to the further row an army commander arrived and announced that the deal was off. The entire area up to the village itself was now a closed military area (for us -- not for the settlers) and there would be no more harvesting that day. "The villagers could coordinate another day".

As the army was pushing us backwards, the radio arrived to make live interviews with a villager, with me and with a settler leader.

There was a decision to make, about which we had no time to thoroughly discuss in advance. Some of us were so outraged that they wanted to sit down and get arrested.

However, our hosts requested that we comply with the army, which was of course decisive for us.

Certain that the groves would be attacked that night, I asked for assurances that the security forces would protect the trees, and was told point blank "We can't be responsible for every single tree."

One Palestinian sat down and said that he would die on his land before moving, which opened the discussion again; Israelis and internationals were ready to take his place, since the risk for them was much smaller -- but in the end, the other Palestinians again prevailed on everybody not to reach a confrontation.

Then, one young Palestinian was separated and his ID confiscated, for no visible reason. We immediately stopped moving, demanding that the ID be returned: "If he is under arrest, arrest me too". The police argued among themselves and finally the ID was returned.

On our way out of the village, a police vehicle with flashing lights accompanied us to make sure that we were really leaving. The driver of our rented van told that while waiting for us to return he had been attacked by armed settlers, who had tried to block off his escape route and let the air out of his tires. (...)

'Don't go here - go there!'

In a period that nearly daily olive pickers were mobilized by the veteran activist Yakov Manor, with never enough people for the many farmers who needed to be joined by such 'human shield teams' before the end of the season, Gush Shalom decided on a major action on Saturday Nov. 9. Beate Zilversmidt reports.

 We got many sacks filled, and we even succeeded in letting the Palestinians drive them home with their tractor. But let's start from the beginning:

It took us many hours to arrive at Salem village, the place of today's olive harvesting. After all publicity about brutal settler interference with the Palestinian olive harvest, the army apparently had instructions not to refuse us access. So, very different from past experiences no declaration of a closed military zone today, and the three Gush Shalom buses with volunteers (mostly from Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem) were let through.

But the army could not so quick change its nature. They let us pass only reluctantly; we had several times to wait at roadblocks because the army insisted on investigating the ground before we were let through. It gave the activists plenty of time to read the instructions; how to leave negotiations to the specific team, and remain non-violent even under army or settler provocation, and a special instruction for the specific day: no eating or drinking; it is Ramadan.

There were new obstacles all the time: the Palestinian farmers who had asked for our help had until this day not at all been allowed to get to their lands, close to which settlers had built a new "outpost for the Alon Moreh settlement." And the army which granted the

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Gush Shalom group access, initially again wanted to exclude the Palestinians. After negotiations, they agreed to let six of them accompany us. The Palestinians created an accomplished fact: together with the six men came a whole group of wives and daughters, bringing with them a horse, donkeys, sacks, buckets and big pieces of nylon -- to spread out under the trees.

It was a long, long cavalcade which climbed the half-hour way to the hilltop where the olive grove was. At some point Uri Avnery was invited to climb the horse's "backseat" -- a surrealistic duo guiding us towards our goal.

Two hundred impatient olive pickers started immediately to spread to the trees. Then, nervous shouts: the army doesn't allow us in this direction, please go only in that direction. (It had been agreed in advance not to confront the army: our purpose was to get the olives from the trees into the village; anything else was secondary.)

Many of the Israelis were already experienced: "you should especially pick the green ones, and you can beat the tree with sticks to get the olives which hang high fall to the ground." And gradually the buckets and sacks started to fill.

Again and again the soldiers showed how upsetting the situation was for them: don't go here, go there -- and not always consistent.

Some people started discussions, and the atmosphere became nearly relaxed. "We should make it closed military zone. You have cheated us: there are more than six Palestinians." "When you don't want the Palestinians to pick their own olives, why does Gush Shalom have to do it? Why not soldiers?"

When the sky started to darken the soldiers decided it was enough. It was difficult to leave behind so many ripe and fat olives, but we didn't want to spoil it at the last moment -- the Palestinians would pay the price for that -- and we embarked on the way down.

Then, upon arriving to the buses, it turned out that the Palestinian tractor, which was to transport the olives to the three kilometers away Salem village was not allowed by the soldiers to use the only road (the same road over which it had arrived there) and they took the keys.

That was the moment for a spontaneous sit-in strike of a whole crowd, blocking the road for all traffic. Our negotiators made clear that we hadn't wasted our day only to let the olives rot there, and that we wouldn't go away unless the tractor with the olive sacks was allowed to return to the village.

In the end it was agreed that one of us, Teddy Katz, would join the tractor -- for the soldiers to be able to shrug off responsibility, but at the same time for us to make sure that the tractor wouldn't be harassed at a further point.

When the tractor started moving the Palestinians were cheering and thanking us, as they didn't during the hours of harvesting. It was as if the confrontation with the army in the end had turned us from good-hearted, naive people into respectable fellow strugglers -- all thanks to our "enlightened" occupation forces.


'Occupation is the cause'

November 10 -- attack on Kibbutz Metzer. Five people shot to death from short range, among them two children and their mother. The work of one man with a gun, the act claimed by a Palestinian militant group. The Kibbutz infiltrated -- a model of good relations with their Palestinian neighbors, as could be verified on TV: never had there been so many (if any) Arabs to join the saddened crowd in a funeral after a terrorist attack.

There were those who say -- as quoted in the media -- that "it was done on purpose, out of a hatred not just blind but poised to weaken the Israelis who try to achieve a fair compromise." But from the publicity and also our own impression it is clear that the ideals of this Kibbutz near the Green Line have gained a hearing which they never had before.

Not only journalists from all over the world but also Israelis -- public personalities and just normal people embarked for the Kibbutz. Most of them heard for the first time of the efforts by the Metzer people to change the plans for the Separation Wall -- also to be erected on their eastside. In vain Metzer had tried to convince the authorities to build the wall -- if at all -- not at the expense of Palestinian farmland. Why not build it on the Green Line, or -- if space is needed around it -- then at the expense of the Kibbutz' lands. After all, whom was the Wall supposed to benefit?...

Such logic, the logic of "trying to keep the neighbors satisfied", is not at all common in today's Israel.

So, the surprised readers of the mass circulation daily Ma'ariv had to swallow on the day after the attack a headline -- quoted from Kibbutz representative Doron Lieber: The Occupation Is The Cause Of Terrorism.

All the peace movements went there, as individuals or collectively.

Speaking with a few of the Kibbutz members, one gets the impression of people who are very hurt, and who may nevermore go around in the dark without fear, but nevertheless they are not ready to give up their belief in openness and good relations, the relations which they have built over decades, real neighborly relations with the Arabs among whom they live, inside and over the Green Line, many of whom come and mourn with them day after day. [BZ]
Doron Lieber, ph: 972-4-6387857; fax: 972-4-6387815


Transfer's real nightmare
Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir, Ha'aretz, Nov.15
As these words are being written, Khirbet Yanun still exists. Or maybe not: 15 of the 25 families that lived in the village are still there. This is not an insignificant number: If the reader recalls, on October 18 only two old men remained there, having refused to leave even after the last families departed, holding on by their fingertips to the village despite the abuse of settlers. The others had decided to take their possessions and move to the nearby town of Akrabeh.

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However, Khirbet Yanun's existence is still frail and incomplete. There is still no electricity or running water, the houses are without furniture, the presence of residents sparse, their security unassured. At the beginning of last week, volunteers from Israel and abroad -- Jews and Arabs who belong to the Ta'ayush movement -- were still on site, but their presence there was transitory. Come the next attack by settlers, which will happen sooner or later, Khirbet Yanun may be emptied of its residents for good.

Many Israelis who are committed to a life of peace and justice in this country are convinced, it seems, that despite all the horrors of the occupation and the violent conflict, there are still certain red lines that they will not allow Ariel Sharon and his government to cross: Transfer will not be permitted to happen. When the critical moment arrives, they will stand up and stop it.

But transfer isn't necessarily a dramatic moment, a moment when people are expelled and flee their towns or villages. It is not necessarily a planned and well-organized move with buses and trucks loaded with people, such as happened in Qalqilyah in 1967. Transfer is a deeper process, a creeping process that is hidden from view. It is not captured on film, is hardly documented, and it is going on right in front of our eyes. Anyone who is waiting for a dramatic moment is liable to miss it as it happens.

The main component of the process is the gradual undermining of the infrastructure of the civilian Palestinian population's lives in the territories: its continuing strangulation under closures and sieges that prevent people from getting to work or school, from receiving medical services, and from allowing the passage of water trucks and ambulances, which sends the Palestinians back to the age of donkey and cart. Taken together, these measures undermine the hold of the Palestinian population on its land.

When the water trucks don't make it to the villages, when every trip to work becomes an adventure with an unforeseeable end, when schools are closed and hospitals in the nearby urban center begin to grow further away -- the local fabric of life begins to disintegrate. Some of the young people, who used to work outside the village and then return home every night, remain outside, choosing not to attempt to pass through the succession of roadblocks each morning. Families that are able to do so move to safer places, closer to their sources of income, inside the population centers.

And the number of instances are mounting up: the butcher from Jerusalem, who despairs at the attempt to cross the Qalandiyah roadblock and who has closed his shop that is situated north of it; the taxi driver who moved out of his home in northern Jerusalem to live, crowded with the rest of the family, in his parents' home in the Old City, in order to have a chance to get to work; residents of a West Bank village whose son was about to begin studies in the nearby city of Nablus, but because it is no longer so accessible even by public transit, are poised to leave their village and move to the city. All of these cases signal how the hold of the Palestinian population on the land is being weakened.


Not an isolated case

What the army's closures and sieges don't achieve, the settlers do: Every new settlement and outpost requires security, of course, and the meaning of security to settlers is eviction of Palestinians from the surrounding area, and transformation of the agricultural lands into death zones. Whoever enters them, to pick olives or work the land, may end up paying for the act with his life. In order for a handful of settlers to dominate almost half of the land of the occupied territories, an organized action, a conquest of the land, a tower-and-stockade thrust is required. Armed, subsidized and organized, they systematically rough up residents of the villages, very much like the paramilitary units employed by hacienda owners in Latin America to inflict a reign of terror on the peasantry. They are above the law.

The campaign against the olive harvesters was therefore an important component of the settlers' attempt to pull out from under the legs of the villagers the little that they still have. It is also intended to show them that the settlers are the real masters, that they can pick the olives of the villagers with impunity, and drive off with gunfire anyone who tries to stand in their way.

Khirbet Yanun is not an isolated case. Dozens of villages in the area of Tul Karm and Qalqilyah, Salfit and Nablus have been subjected to intense existential pressure for several months. This is not necessarily marked by dramatic incidents causing death and casualties, but by organized abuse, constant deterioration of living conditions, tightening of the stranglehold, and increased isolation from the economic, cultural and political centers of Palestinian society.

All of these long-term structural processes, which gradually undermine the population's hold on its land, are clearly expressed at Khirbet Yanun.

It is a small and isolated settlement that lies only a few hundred meters from the outposts established by the settlers of Itamar. The outposts were established in the hills above Yanun in the late 1990s, under the auspices of the "peace process." Akrabeh is situated a 15-minute drive away, via a poorly maintained dirt road that is easy to block off.

Venture out at night into the streets of Yanun. The little village is dark, the landscape pastoral. But even in the village itself, residents are not alone: On the hill opposite, the settlers' watchtowers can be seen, and from the hill on the other side, the caravans and cars are visible. The lights of the patrol vehicles can be seen from far away. Here in their homeland, the people of Yanun sit surrounded, as in a sort of reserve whose days are numbered. The settlers may appear at any moment, and they do: The children hide whenever they hear the sound of their all-terrain vehicles. The residents freeze in place in the olive grove whenever the settlers appear.

This, too, is not an isolated case: If you find yourself

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in the southern Hebron hills along the edge of the desert, along with Palestinian residents living in their tents in Susya, here too you will find that there is no room for the local residents. Look up and you will see a star-studded sky, but all it takes is a glance around and you will understand that you are surrounded -- army vehicles patrol the road, which the Palestinians are not allowed to approach.

On the other side are the settlers of Susya: Woe to anyone who gets too close to the fields adjacent to the settlement. And Susya continues to expand. An illuminated security road passes behind you, in the wadi, and if you take a look northward, you will see the lights of the nearby army base and hear the announcements crackling from the loudspeakers.

This reality conveys an unambiguous message: Residents of the reserve -- you are surrounded; it would be best if you surrendered. And these are also the explicit words uttered by the settlers to the people of Khirbet Yanun during recent attacks on the village, when they broke into homes, when they beat Abd al-Latif Bani Jaber in front of his family: Get out of here, go to Akrabeh. Complaints lodged by Yanun residents to the police provide a documentation of the process by which their village has turned into a ghost town.

The village is situated in Area C, which is under the full security and administrative responsibility of Israel, but in the opinion of local residents, there is a tacit agreement between the army and the settlers. All development in the village is blocked. Indeed, since 1992, the Israeli Civil Administration has forbidden any construction there. The fields have become unsafe. The settlers used to come down the hill and treat the village as if it were their own. Local residents quote one of the settlers from Itamar, who told them that he and he alone ruled the area. I will remain here, he said, when the police and the press have gone. According to residents, it was he who led the raids on the village.

And so, long before they burned the electrical generator in April 2002, the infrastructure of daily life was increasingly being undermined. The children of Khirbet Yanun used to go to the elementary school in Yanun a-Tahta, which is near Akrabeh. When the raids grew worse and the road became unsafe, a small school was opened in the village, less than two years ago. This school was closed when the last families left the village.

The walls were closing in on the daily lives of the villagers. The nearest high school is in Akrabeh, which has become so much more distant. So anyone who wants his children to stay in school is compelled to leave Yanun and move to the town. But even without this consideration - who is going to decide to stay in a village where settlers come and go as they please, day and night, marching on the roofs of the houses and breaking into the homes?

On Thursday, October 17, the principal of the small school in Khirbet Yanun bade farewell to his last students. The next day, the last six families left town. Two days later, the Ta'ayush volunteers arrived in order to enable residents to return to their village. Most of the residents are still there.

Danger signal

Khirbet Yanun sends a danger signal that should not be disregarded: Tens of thousands of people are liable to become displaced persons and refugees. In addition, Israeli "security sources" repeatedly leak reports that in time of war or escalation of the conflict, the Sharon government may try to displace many others, on an organized basis. The pain of displacement will not be soothed by time. For years to come, Israeli society will have to contend with the violent cost of this displacement, which is added to previous rounds of it.

Yanun is a warning sign not only to Israelis but also to Palestinians. The danger of transfer is tangible. In order to eliminate it, there is a need for serious work in the field and a strengthening of the local economy. First and foremost, there should be a focus on rejuvenating the social fabric and strengthening the internal solidarity within Palestinian society. Without these, a new wave of refugees is liable to be added to the old camps or join existing urban centers.

The foundation that is required for sumud (the stubborn clinging to the land, the determination to hold on in spite of the occupation) will not be found in symbolic actions, in focusing on international public opinion at the expense of dealing with the distress at home, or in armed demonstrations of power. In order to contend with the creeping process of transfer, Palestinian society must enlist its human resources in order to struggle over every meter of land and every goat. Will this effort find loyal Israeli allies in the civil struggle against dispossession?

Ta'ayush volunteers came to Khirbet Yanun for two weeks to fend for the residents, to facilitate their return home and to roust public opinion out of its state of apathy. Fifteen families have returned to their homes, albeit hesitantly and fearfully, and their return is not complete.

During our stay here, the army has been compelled to demonstrate its presence. But past experience teaches the residents that despite their calls for help, the maltreatment will not end. During our stay here, the Itamar settlers succeeded in swooping down on the village and severely beating two residents and four volunteers. None of the rioters was arrested. A sign of things to come.

Our presence in Khirbet Yanun was temporary. It is impossible and it is wrong for the presence of Israeli citizens to be the only guarantee to ensure the continued existence of a Palestinian village. Unless people in Israel stand up to the injustice and support the people of the village, they will remain at the mercy of the settlers. When will the next attack come? Will it be after the residents leave? Will they blow up the houses of the village? Or move into the houses? And where will they stop?

The sights from three weeks ago remain with us. On the moonlit night when we arrived in Yanun, we walked through the abandoned Arab village.


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The residents had time to prepare themselves, to take their belongings, gather light fixtures and pull out the electrical wiring. There wasn't even the sound of a single dog barking in the village. Still, wherever you turn, you see open homes, broken-down doors, yawning black voids. And on the surrounding hillsides, the watchtowers of the settlers of Itamar. More or less, this is how the Palestinian villages looked after 1948. Fifty-odd years later, we are here again, Israelis and Palestinians, captives of a history whose bitter lessons we have forgotten.

At the time this TOI goes into print, the re-established community at Yanoun is holding on, and a new electricity generator, to replace the one destroyed by the settlers, was procured and installed through donations from EU and Norwegian institutes. A stand-by list was prepared of activists willing to arrive again at short notice, should the settler attacks resume.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have taken up helping the villagers market their olive oil in Israel. [AK]
Ta'ayush, pob 59380, Tel-Aviv 61593, www.taayush.org


Gush Shalom still targeted
The struggle to create war crime awareness
The storm over Gush Shalom's warning letters to soldiers, concerning their openly professed violations of International Law (TOI-103, p.28) wasn't given the chance to calm down. Initiated in August by the Prime Minister, it was kept alive by pronouncements from different members of the political and military establishment.

According to General Dan Halutz, Commander of the Air Force, Gush Shalom activists should be put on trial for treason and for "using blackmail against fighters." He was infuriated, not so much about the letters (none of which was sent actually sent to the Air Force) as about the fact that three pilots had found their cars spray-painted with 'war criminal' graffiti -- an act attributed without a shred of proof to Gush Shalom.

General Halutz told that the graffiti "aroused shock" among the Air Force pilots, who complained to him personally. What he didn't mention was the fact (revealed later by Ha'aretz) that many of the pilots were actually feeling uneasy about the bombardment and killing of civilians, especially children -- something which their commander considers 'collateral damage' over which one can't lose one's sleep.

The general was serious about wanting Gush Shalom on trial -- and so was Sharon. For more than a month, the PM was reportedly badgering Attorney-General Rubinstein and waiting impatiently for the prosecution to begin. Rubinstein, however, was skeptical from the start about the chance of finding the appropriate legal grounds.

After a full-page advertisement in support of Gush Shalom's right to cry out against war crimes had appeared in Ha'aretz, with many international Jewish organizations and personalities among the signatories, Rubinstein informed Gush Shalom on Sept. 19 that he had no intention of starting any proceedings.

Justice Minister Sheetrit responded by declaring that "If the existing law doesn't allow prosecution, we will change the law." Thereupon, the Attorney General declared that letters of the sort sent by Gush Shalom to army officers "could be considered in violation of extortion laws, as their aim is to coerce IDF officers into refraining from legal acts (sic!) within the framework of their military roles", but that no prosecution on these lines would be opened if Gush Shalom did not send further letters of the kind.

A few weeks later PM Sharon vented his frustration in a radio interview for the Jewish New Year. "Gush Shalom is splitting the people" -- he complained -- "like the Jews of 2,000 years ago who fought each other and let the Romans win."

A month later, Knesset Member Ze'ev Boim -- a senior member of the ruling Likud Party and chair of the government coalition -- dropped a bombshell: a bill was tabled which would criminalize any assistance rendered by an Israeli citizen to the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Under the Boim Bill, any such assistance would be punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment.

And "assistance to the international court" was defined as to include "the provision of any information such as writings, photographs, documents, opinions (sic!) and reports" as well as "the collection, keeping, preparation and transfer of information" and also "the holding of investigations and the writing down of their results." Moreover, any association engaged in any such activities would be liable to disbanding.

The primary target of the bill is Gush Shalom, but once enacted also the entire work of human rights organizations (collecting and publishing testimonies on human rights violations) might be construed as illegal. After all, their widely disseminated reports offer to such courts evidence on a silver plate. The same may hold for Peace Now's periodically issued Settlement Watch reports, which contain information about clear violations of international law.

Gush Shalom prepared for a protest campaign. The Coordinating Committee of the human rights organizations placed the issue on its agenda. But then came the abrupt collapse of the National Unity Government, followed by the dissolution of the Knesset and the suspension of all legislative activity.

There matters stand, at the time of writing: a respite until after the elections when the Boim Bill is likely to be revived. Meanwhile, the whole debate drew some more attention to what the army is actually doing in the Territories, and the explicit term "war crime" is nowadays occasionally heard also from mild liberals...


When it is someone you know...
Ami Isseroff
Dec. 18, Rehovot
Yesterday my friend was arrested. He is being held without charges. It took an entire day to find out where he is being held. "Not possible" you say, "We live in a democracy." It is possible, and it happened. My friend is a Palestinian. He is not likely to be a terrorist. He helps run the Hope Flowers school that has become an international byword for peace and


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coexistence. Nonetheless, his house was nearly destroyed. Tonight he sleeps somewhere in a jail in Gush Etzion. His worried family in Bethlehem will not sleep.

Israelis are not aware that beyond the green line, in the occupied territories, there is no rule of law. Our media do not tell us. Nobody is willing to believe it. You only understand when it happens to someone you know...

You are asleep in your house. It is 4 AM. You are awakened by voices of soldiers and marched off to jail. There are no charges; there is no appeal. Your arrest is not announced. At 8 AM bulldozers come to destroy your home. There was no hearing and no trial. You are kept in a detention cell. You do not have your medicines. You do not have warm clothing. Your relatives do not know where you are and cannot find you. There is no one to call, nobody who will give out information. Your loved ones wander from official to official asking: "Where is he?" "What are the charges?" but there are no answers at all for many hours, only "call later," "it is not my department."

Where did it happen? Was it a scene out of a novel by Franz Kafka? A Gothic tale of medieval horror? A tragedy of the Third Reich? A day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch? A barbaric societal atavistic aberration in a benighted Islamic Republic? No, it is nobody's imagination, and it did not happen in the USSR, or in Germany or in an Islamic Republic. It happened in Israel, less than 50 kilometers from where I live. It happened to my friend, a man of peace, Ibrahim Issa of Hope Flowers school in El Khader. It did not happen long ago. It happened just now, December 17. It is not a unique occurrence. It happens every day, to many people who are less lucky than Ibrahim Issa, who may have no friends in Israel and the USA to vouch for them, to alert the US Embassy to stop the bulldozers from destroying their homes. Ibrahim Issa and his family run the Hope Flowers school, which has a sterling reputation for upholding values of democracy and coexistence even in the very worst conditions. The school was cited as an example of the hope for peace by Hillary Clinton, in the long ago day when the peace process was still alive, and there was still hope for Palestinians and Israelis.

By all indications, Issa made an innocent mistake. He rented a room to one Bilal, who said he was a night watchman from Yatta. Billal gave the keys to his room to Tanzim terrorists. When the IDF caught the terrorists, they decided to mete out punishment and ask questions later. Most people are scarcely aware of this nightmare reality. Israelis are insulated from it by media that do not report it, by the will to ignore reality beyond the green line, and by the invisibility of Palestinians to the Israeli mindset. The near-destruction of the Issa home rated one or two lines in reports in the media. That is an exception.

There might have been no report at all, but for the fact that intervention by the American Embassy prevented destruction of the house at the last moment.

Issa's arrest and detention were not reported at all. How many other Ibrahim Issas have been detained without trial? How many families have lost their homes for no reason? How many people have lost life or limb? Not by the hands of vile terrorists or by accident, but by the operation of our Israeli army, of which we are so justly proud. We are doing these things -- we and our sons and our daughters.

This is the reality of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. No due process, no judicial oversight until after the fact, if ever. It is the reality experienced by millions of Palestinians each day. "Justice" administered by young officers who are judge, jury and executioner. Ibrahim's "justice" was meted out by a soldier in the border guards, let's call him Uzi. Uzi may have no idea what Hope Flowers school is about. He may not know that Hope Flowers is a favorite project of Hillary Clinton, and that his actions are embarrassing Israel as well as punishing an innocent family. For all we know, he may have no idea who Hillary Clinton is. Every day, Uzi and his friends are generating more innocent Palestinian victims, more Palestinians for whom "peace" is a dirty word. Every day, they are turning out more and more enemies of Israel in new and better models: a man whose house was destroyed; a woman whose four year old son was shot for no reason; a child who was shot and paralyzed while standing on his porch. These days, enemies may be Israel's most "productive" industry.

Certainly, this industry has monumentally important consequences for the future. Enemies are our most important product.
www.mideastweb.org/hopeflowers

N.B. This article, electronically spread, helped cause a storm. On Dec. 20, Ibrahim Issa was released.

Copyright: Ami Isseroff & MidEastWeb for Coexistence
Copied with permission from www.mideastweb.org


Letter to the Attorney General

Uri Avnery, on behalf of the Gush Shalom movement, sent a sharp warning to the Attorney General, concerning the intended destruction of dozens of homes in Hebron. Following is the text, which was published on Dec.10 as paid ad in several Israeli dailies.

December 5, 2002

Mr. Elyakim Rubinstein, Legal Advisor to the Government, Jerusalem

Sir, We are in possession of decree 61/02/T, signed by General Moshe Kaplinsky, commander of the IDF in the 'Judea and Samaria' area

This decree orders the expropriation of 61 (sixty one) parcels, as follows: 'I declare that these lands will be taken over for military needs. I hereby order the demolition of the buildings for military needs.' To the best of our knowledge and understanding, there are no 'military needs' for this act, which entails the destruction of a whole neighborhood. The purpose of the decree is to create a 'territorial contiguity' between the settlers in Kiryat-Arba and those in the center of Hebron

In the absence of an urgent military need, this act may be considered a war crime under international

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law. There is no need to add that the very existence of an Israeli settlement in Hebron is illegal under international law.

As an Israeli peace movement, we are deeply concerned with the moral fabric and the international standing of our country. Therefore we request you to --

(1) Inform the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense that the above action is manifestly illegal and must be cancelled at once

(2) Warn General Moshe Kaplinsky that the above act may be considered a war crime and entail severe personal consequences for him at any time.

We are convinced that by doing so you will act for the good of the state and the army.

We believe that it is the duty of every citizen in a democratic state to warn against actions that may constitute war crimes, and take all legal steps necessary for their prevention. This we are doing.

Yours truly,

Uri Avnery,

Former Member of the Knesset

Gush Shalom

Copy: General Moshe Kaplinsky

The Gush Shalom protest at the plans to link the settler enclaves in the heart of Hebron with the bigger settlement Kiryat Arba to the east did not stay alone. Here follow details about a growing campaign.

The planned mass demolition of houses in Hebron is part of a bigger scheme to create for the settlers a "promenade" free of Arab presence. This long-existing plan, which Sharon openly advocated already back in 1996, is now presented as reaction to the battle of November 15, when three Palestinian guerrillas ambushed Israeli military units, fought them off for several hours and killed twelve soldiers and settler militiamen before being killed themselves.

On the same night, the army destroyed several Palestinian houses for having "provided cover to the ambushers' (though the families living there knew nothing of the attack). The settlers immediately moved in to establish an illegal "settlement outpost" on the vacated site.

A few days later, General Kaplinsy issued orders for the widespread confiscation of land along a kilometer-long strip and the destruction of all Palestinian houses in it; for their part, the settlers announced their intention to follow upon the demolition with construction of no less than a 1000 housing units, for the exclusive habitation of Jews, on the site. The area designated for destruction is Hebron's oldest part, with some of the doomed houses being 500 or 700 years old and considered -- aside from being family homes -- part of a unique cultural heritage.

The "Hebron Promenade" scheme aroused considerable opposition in the Israeli public opinion, and was the subject of several strongly worded editorials and op-ed articles. The Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction against the demolitions, following two appeals -- one by the Palestinian inhabitants and the Hebron municipality, represented by the veteran Adv. Shlomo Leker of Jerusalem, the other by Yesh Gvul and KM Mossi Raz.

Towards the continuation of the proceedings, expected in the beginning of January, several other groups -- Gush Shalom, Women's Peace Coalition and Netivot Shalom -- have joined the appellants, as did an impressive array of public figures.

Meanwhile, Peace Now decided to organize a protest demonstration on the threatened site. Their first attempt was foiled by the police and army, who blocked their way far north of Hebron. Peace Now made its own appeal to the Supreme Court, citing the permission given by the army and police for large demonstrations by pro-settler groups on the same site.

The court granted the petition, with the proviso that no more than 150 people take part in the action. Three days before the scheduled date, the army suddenly evacuated the illegal settler outpost. The settlers put up only token resistance, after their leaders were informed that a military outpost will be set up on the site instead, and were given a tacit promise that eventually soldiers will be removed and the outpost turned over to them (which is the way quite a lot of West Bank settlements originated).

Peace Now refused to be mollified by what they termed "Sharon's cosmetic manoeuvres." On the morning of Dec. 22 they held their protest, surrounded by a tight cordon of army and police. The Palestinians meanwhile were kept inside their homes (yet another curfew), to prevent them from joining the protest.

A separate struggle with the army was needed in order to get permission for journalists to arrive on the spot and cover the demonstration.

Meanwhile, Labor Party candidate Amram Mitzna announced that if elected, he would not only cancel the "promenade" plan but also altogether evacuate the settler enclaves inside Hebron.

# On Dec. 20, the Women in Black, who had been holding regular Friday vigils on Jerusalem's France Square for the past fourteen years, had an unusual reinforcement: American actress Jane Fonda, on a political visit to Israel and Palestine, did not only engage in VIP events but was also willing to participate in the women's regular Friday vigil. It happened to be a very rainy day -- which did not stop the vigil from taking place. Ma'ariv showed on Sunday a photo of Fonda, standing in the picket line under an umbrella and holding a Down with the Occupation! sign.

Fonda also spoke with Rama Ya'akobi, veteran Woman in Black and mother of the imprisoned CO Uri Ya'akobi, and expressed support for the refusers.

From there, Jane Fonda traveled to meet with Arafat in Ramallah, visit a refugee camp and also observe the long line of harassed Palestinians at the Kalandia Checkpoint, in company with the seasoned women checkpoint monitors of Machsom Watch.
www.coalitionofwomen4peace.org; pob 8083, J'lem


Activist behind the scenes
Rayna Moss

My friend Hagar initiated what started out as a modest campaign to raise funds for buying school equipment for Palestinian children. The campaign was taken up by the Movement of Democratic

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Women, whose members sewed 1,000 backpacks and then asked for support in filling them. Through a few emails and phone calls, we managed to raise hundreds of shekels, enough to fully equip more than 80 children (with some help from our enthusiastic supporter, the owner of the two-shekel store. He calls us "Righteous Ladies" and that's the name we've adopted for our small band of at-home activists.

In general, we don't know where the backpacks go -- the MDW make trips to whatever city or village is accessible on a certain day, according to needs and requests from local NGOs. In one case, a friend from Gush Shalom reported getting a request from a small town, where none of the children had anything to bring to school and happily, we were able to respond immediately. That week, they received 100 backpacks, in addition to donated clothing and toys.

As soon as that campaign was over, we were alerted to the situation of Palestinian families with sick children, who are given permits to come to hospitals in Israel. Obtaining the permits is a struggle in itself, and the parents rush to the hospital as soon as they get them, without any preparation.

The children are usually in critical condition -- newborns with heart defects, leukemia patients who need chemotherapy, a boy who was shot in the head. In addition to the obvious concern and tension, the parents don't have the support of their families once they are in Israel. Sometimes only one parent is allowed in, they have other children at home in the care of grandparents or other relatives and they are isolated due to language and status.

A peace activist became aware of this situation after receiving a call from a PNA official whose relatives were at an Israeli hospital -- they had not changed clothes in three days and were subsisting on leftover hospital food and snacks from a vending machine. The activist started to care for them and asked others to help.

One man who lives near the hospital now goes every day, checking all the wards for Palestinian families who might need help. He reports to one of the "Righteous Ladies" (who can't get into trouble because she's pregnant) and she in turn makes sure that the families are visited every day, get fresh food and changes of clothing, calling cards for the pay phone, etc.

The families have only good things to say about the medical staff and pray for them on a regular basis. "They don't discriminate at all, they don't care if you're Jewish or Arab," one mother told me. Another said, that a doctor had stayed with her son for hours in intensive care, "just as if it were his own son." How utterly terrible, when medical staff performing their jobs "without discrimination" is considered to be practically a miracle...

The everyday, mundane problem seems to be with the support/administrative staff, who make no effort to help the families. One woman did not have a pillow for a week, because no one told her that she could go to the linen closet and take one. No social workers have come to sit with them and help them through these difficult times. All of those normal functions are done by volunteers. Another difficulty is money -- the prices here are three or four times higher than in Palestine, so what funds they do have with them don't last. In theory they could have found their way to a market with cheaper prices, but they can't leave the hospital at all, because their ID cards are held by security. In any event, we've settled into a good routine and these people are no longer isolated and neglected.

When it was my turn, some of the families had already been there for a week, so as soon as Peter and I got off the elevator with our bags and containers, they greeted us "Here's Ta'ayush!" The same people who, the week before, had been fearful and alone, were already settling down and even supporting others.

A Palestinian father told me about a Jewish family whose daughter was terminal and had been told that she would die within hours. He said that he distracted the mother by drawing her into a political debate and when the girl did die several days later, he and his wife comforted the parents and sat with them.

Helping these families is somewhat delicate -- these are people who normally do not ask for favors or charity, working people who support their families and who are in need only due to circumstances. We explained that we are not a charity group, that we are supporting them as a political act, because they are victims of the occupation, but it was still difficult to overcome natural shyness and discomfort. Things have gotten better, since we make a party of the whole thing.

We "occupy" the lounge (well, we are Israelis...), put tables together and put out a spread. Of course, we also eat, so it is more like a communal meal.

Although there is tough competition, I have been officially named 'the best cook in Ta'ayush'. Of course, most of the judges are sick and/or traumatized, but still, their taste buds are unaffected. It was really gratifying the last time I went, to see people really digging in, especially a young boy who was terribly burned in a home accident. His father said that he wouldn't eat, because he would only take liquids, but I made a small plate for him anyway and he devoured everything. Both of his arms were bandaged and his face was covered with an ointment, but the smile he gave me was unbelievable. What more could a Jewish mother want?

A few days later, the coordinator called to tell me that one of the mothers who had shared our meal had smiled for the first time that day and she started to realize the value of our work there. But today we heard the heartbreaking news that her baby had died. I don't think there was anything more that could have been done for him, from the medical aspect. He was born with severe problems and despite the heart surgery, his other organs collapsed. He was three weeks old.

We did have some good news as well, one girl taken out of intensive care and transferred to a regular ward; a boy with cancer whose parents got a permit to go back and forth with him, so they don't have to be prisoners at the hospital, but we are all distressed at

[Page 27]
this tragedy. On the optimistic side, this project had a nice spin-off. I asked Hagar to organize some clothes for the babies and children who were being released and she contacted a friend who has access to a large quantity of used clothing. The guy promised he'd leave the bags outside her door.

When she got home, she couldn't see her door: he'd brought about 15 huge garbage bags filled with clothing and shoes, filling the entire staircase.

It took us a whole day to separate everything. A lot went to Windows, a group that brings supplies to Palestinian communities. We also donated bags to a group of refugees from Sierra Leone, who have won a legal battle to remain here due to the civil war in their country, and who now need the means to support themselves.

Meanwhile, I continue to volunteer at the Open Clinic, which serves migrant workers. I fail to see how a person like myself, who faints at the sight of blood and gets queasy even seeing an injection in a movie, gets involved in so many medically related projects, but there it is. My job at the clinic is not in a medical capacity, of course: I just work the reception desk, refer patients, give out information, play with the kids while they wait, hold babies while the mothers use the bathroom, feed homeless people who wander in, etc.

In the three years the clinic has been working, we have had more than 10,000 patients. All of the work is voluntary and the administrative staff of Physicians for Human Rights also works for the clinic. The Tel-Aviv municipality is now considering giving us a building and perhaps paying some full-time medical staff. It took them ten years to recognize we have a population of migrant workers with no social services. Only three years to recognize the need for a clinic. I guess that's progress.

***

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Naboth had a vineyard
Uri Avnery, Oct.26, 2002

Had they been there last Saturday at sunset, most Israelis would not have believed their eyes.

In the middle of Hawarah, a village south of Nablus, 63 Israelis, men and women, young and old, were standing together with dozens of Palestinian villagers. Jews and Arabs talked together, drank juice offered by the hosts, exchanged addresses and phone numbers. The local children were wearing stickers brought by the guests, showing the flags of Israel and Palestine. Nobody bore arms.

All of them looked happy, and with reason: they had just finished a hard day's work at olive picking. They had been together under the trees. They were together when the settlers opened fire.

All this happened deep inside Palestinian territory, after two years of violent confrontation. A feast of Israeli-Palestinian fraternization in the middle of the bloody attacks. A human experience. A political act. A symbolic event.

Since biblical times the olive tree has been the symbol of this country. It has sustained the peasants for many generations -- Canaanites, Israelites, Arabs. Throughout the year, the peasant works in the grove that has been handed down from father to son, treats the trees, cleans the ground. During the few weeks of harvest, the whole family picks the olives -- men and women, old people and children. The olives must be picked in time and brought to the olive press, where the golden liquid is extracted -- olive oil. These are days of rejoicing.

A whole family can now live on ten olive trees. Without them, they cannot exist. The harsher the occupation becomes, the more it prevents movement and denies livelihood, the more the villagers become dependent on the olive trees.

Therefore the actions of the settlers are so dastardly. They try to prevent the harvesting, to steal the fruit or to burn the groves. Their actions remind one of one of the wickedest deeds described in the Bible, for eternal shame: the story of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21.):

"Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it, or, if it seems good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee?" The rest of the story is well known: Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, produced false witnesses; Naboth was stoned to death; Ahab got the vineyard. In the end, the dogs licked the blood of both Ahab and Jezebel.

But compared to today's settlers, the wicked Jezebel was a model of righteousness. The settlers take possession of the villagers' olive groves without even offering payment or alternatives. They just shoot. One Palestinian boy was shot and killed by them while picking olives; hundreds of others were driven out.

Almost every Palestinian village has olive groves that border on some settlement or "outpost", and therefore are controlled by the settlers. When the owners approach to clean the ground or pick the olives, the settlers shoot at them "in coordination with the army." The simple pretext: when the villagers pick olives near a settlement, they can see what happens there and pose a threat.

A monstrous perversion, indeed: putting a settlement in the middle of a dense population of Palestinians and forbidding them to work their land, because it is close to the settlement.

In some cases the settlers were not satisfied with shooting, but invaded the groves physically, drove away the villagers and stole the olives. The prophets of Israel would have been shocked. Daylight robbery. And the army keeps silent. The settlers' intentions are more evil than those of Ahab and Jezebel. They want to turn the life of the villagers into hell, in order to force them to leave. That is what's called "voluntary transfer", or, in simple language, ethnic cleansing.

For decent Israelis, the conclusion is clear: they get up to help the villagers to pick the olives, before they rot on the trees or are stolen. They form a "human shield" against the settlers. During the last few weeks, hundreds of Israelis have done just that. Last Saturday, 260 Israelis answered the calls of the various peace organizations (Gush Shalom, Ta'ayush, Women's Coalition, a sector of Peace Now.) They were divided between the villages that were in the greatest danger.

My lot was to come to Hawarah, a village lying in a valley between two high mountains. Its olive groves are dispersed on the steep slopes of the mountains, which are covered with rocks and stinging bushes. It was quite an effort just to get there. Here and there somebody fell down and was scratched. But all arrived. Around dozens of trees, groups of pickers, Israelis and Palestinians, started to work. The owners of the trees took advantage of the presence of the Israelis and worked quickly. Going against accepted practice, they hit the branches with sticks in order to get the fruit to fall on the green plastic sheets that were spread on the ground. Bad for the tree, but much quicker. Time was short. Everybody was working feverishly, holding the fruit-laden branches and filling buckets and sacks or gathering from the ground. Each olive was precious. Sportsmen and sportswomen climbed into the trees, filling hats and bags.

The groups that reached the top of the mountain found themselves opposite the settlers of Yitzhar, a well-known nest of fanatics, dressed in their Sabbath clothes -- black trousers, white shirts -- and holding their guns. They threatened the pickers, shot into the air and at the ground. One of the Israeli pickers was hit by a ricochet*. The shots echoed between the mountains.

Forty minutes later the soldiers appeared, and, after hugging the settlers, demanded that the pickers leave the area. They explained that the settlers were right when they opened fire, because the pickers were endangering the settlement. The pickers continued their work obstinately, defended by the Israeli "human shield." But gradually they were pushed down the slope, closely followed by the settlers, with the soldiers in between.

In the other groves, the work continued without interruption. While it was going on, cigarettes were exchanged, conversations started, first haltingly, than more vividly, in spite of language difficulties. Some of the villagers spoke Hebrew and told about the places in Tel-Aviv where they had worked.

Before darkness fell, the sheets were gathered and folded, people put the heavy, full sacks on their shoulders or on donkeys, and started the descent from the steep slopes, from terrace to terrace. The local boys leapt easily. The elderly and the guests moved more cautiously, holding on to bushes and supporting each other.

Many happy people were there. Those who had faced down the hooligans were happy because they had not fled. The Israeli pickers were happy because they had combined a political demonstration with a useful act. The Palestinians were happy because they had saved at least part of their harvest.

At the foot of the mountain, the sacks were put on donkeys and ramshackle cars. In the end, an emotional farewell: hundreds of Palestinians, men, women and children, waved enthusiastically at the departing Israelis, in the village square, the alleys and from the windows -- a whole village. The happy earnings of a day's work.

*A few days later what seemed a superficial wound had caused a severe inflammation; during an emergency operation in a Jerusalem hospital a bullet was removed.

***



Gush Shalom ad, Ha'aretz. August 23
Do we really want this war?

Sharon is urging the United States to attack Iraq.
Israel is the only country in the whole world that really wants this war.
All European and Arab states oppose it. In the American political elite, too, there are voices warning against this adventure -- even while unanimously opposing Sadam Hussein's regime.

With the outbreak of war, Sadam Hussein may throw at us whatever he has got: poison gas, fatal diseases, and even nuclear radiation.
Israel is as defenseless as last time. We have nothing but the 'sealed rooms', adhesive paper and masks. Now there are also tablets against nuclear radiation!

Sharon intends to exploit the ensuing chaos in the Middle East in order to realize his real plan: to drive out the Palestinian from all of the country ('Transfer'). To this end, he is ready to bring disaster on all of us.

A shocking fact: Until now, hardly any voice has been raised in Israel against this disastrous policy. Not a single politician, either in the coalition or the opposition, not a single officer in the army has spoken out.

The silence of the lambs

[Another Gush Shalom ad, Sept 27]
World Order

The evil Sadam
Violates UN resolutions.
To hell with him!

The hero Sharon
Violates UN resolutions.
How brave!

The wise Bush
Decides who may violate
And who must be hit.
Hail the Chief!

Gush Shalom
Checks, to help us publishing ads to:
pob 3322, Tel-Aviv, Israel www.gush-shalom.org