Re: Peac Activists in Israel?

On this note, its worth mentioning the 'women in black' vigils being held 
around the world tomorrow.  This is a joint effort of Israeli and Palestinian 
groups.  Anyone with any ideas about the first global protest?  The most 
internationally comprehensive?  Some of the countries and cities where 
actions are planned tomorrow are listed at the website below (men are also 
welcome to participate).

http://www.geocities.com/womancoalition/

Steven Sherman

In a message dated 6/7/01 9:52:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time, KSamman@aol.com 
writes:

<< Subj:     Peac Activists in Israel?
 Date:  6/7/01 9:52:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  KSamman@aol.com
 Sender:    wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu
 To:    wsn@csf.colorado.edu, SOCGRAD@listserv.binghamton.edu
 
 Haaretz Op-Ed
 ******************************
 Wednesday, June 6, 2001
 
 
 The basic assumptions have not collapsed
 
 By Baruch Kimmerling
 
 
 The feeling that the basic assumptions of those who advocate peace with the 
 Palestinians have collapsed and that Israel has no partners for any process 
 of conciliation with the Palestinians is groundless.Israel's peace camp is 
 disappointed in the Palestinians because they have rejected proposals that 
 "have been unprecedented in their generosity" and because they have instead 
 launched an armed struggle and a guerrilla war (that is inherently a dirty 
 business) against a foreign occupier. This situation, on the one hand, 
 provokes emotions of rage, disillusionment and profound frustration among 
 the majority of the advocates of peace in Israel, and, on the other, makes 
 Israel's colonialists (of every possible stripe) unabashedly gloat.
 
 What is even worse, however, is that some of the members of this peace camp 
 were actually collaborators - through acts of commission and omission, 
 through explicit words and in a tacit manner - with rabid chauvinism, 
 whether secular or religious, without understanding that, in fact, the very 
 concepts of that chauvinism had shattered into thousands of fragments.
 
 What are the principles of the still-valid basic assumptions of the peace 
 camp? Naturally, one must exclude the axioms of those who supported the 
 idea of "peace" when all they really hoped for was to continue to control 
 and settle the occupied territories in an indirect manner, while turning 
 the Palestinian police into a subcontractor in charge of protecting Israeli 
 interests.
 
 First of all, peace - namely, the recognition by the Arab nations of 
 Israel's legitimate right to sovereign existence - is the ultimate goal, 
 and the ideological triumph, of Zionism. All those who seek to sabotage the 
 attainment of that goal or who today define the goals of Zionism in a 
 different fashion are clearly anti-Zionists.
 
 The Jewish national movement - even if the state it established has been 
 partially built atop the ruins of the local Arab society - cannot continue 
 to act as an occupier and to rule another nation while denying the basic 
 rights of that nation. By behaving in this manner, Israel is undermining 
 both its own right to exist and, in long-range terms, its very capacity to 
 survive. The subjugation of another nation and continued expansionism are 
 corrupting Israeli society from within. The perpetuation of the existing 
 situation is leading to an intolerable increase in the brutality, 
 militarism and anti-democratic tendencies of Israeli society.
 
 The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt contains a formula for all future 
 agreements. That formula can be summed up in a nutshell as the recognition 
 of, and the establishment of peaceful relations with, Israel in return for 
 the surrendering of all the territories captured by Israel in 1967, with 
 the proviso that all the territories to be evacuated will not have even one 
 remnant or sign of foreign occupation.
 
 Deviations from this formula and its adaptation to prevailing circumstances 
 are possible, of course; however, the deviations and adaptations can be 
 made only if there is full agreement on both sides.
 
 None of the declarations of principles and none of the agreements and 
 understandings that have been obtained up to now with the Palestinians (and 
 which have all been only interim agreements) openly and explicitly mention 
 this basic principle - primarily because Israel's leaders lacked the 
 courage to publicly make the principle known to their citizens.
 
 Nevertheless, that principle has come to be perceived as a tacit agreement 
 between the parties and as one of the ultimate goals in the conciliation 
 between the Palestinians and the Israelis. When the Palestinians were 
 confronted with the demand that they declare an end to the 
 Palestinian-Israeli dispute under conditions that do not even come close to 
 the fulfillment of that principle, they naturally refused.
 
 As of July 1974, a revolution has taken place in the political thinking of 
 the mainstream component of the Palestinian national movement. After 
 vociferous internal debates, the Palestinian National Council adopted a 
 formula that basically signified, on the one hand, the abandonment of the 
 traditional strategy of "all or nothing" and, on the other, recognition of 
 the principle of the partition of historical Palestine. That recognition 
 was made under conditions that were less favorable than those of the UN 
 General Assembly resolution on the partitioning of historical Palestine in 
 November 1947 (the UN resolution would have granted the Palestinians 22 
 percent). The Israeli response was that the council's decision was nothing 
 but a tactical move intended to destroy Israel in stages.
 
 The Palestinian right of return was not presented as a condition from the 
 time of the declaration of principles until the collapse of the peace talks 
 at Camp David. Nonetheless, the entire world realized that it was essential 
 to deal with the Palestinian refugee problem on two levels. On the symbolic 
 level, Israel must assume at least some of the responsibility for the 
 Palestinian disaster in general and for the situation of the Palestinian 
 refugees in particular.
 
 On the practical level, Israel must express a sincere willingness for - and 
 must begin (as soon as possible, even in stages) - the repatriation of an 
 agreed-upon number of Palestinian refugees, primarily in the context of 
 family reunification efforts. In this process of repatriation, Israel must 
 provide substantive compensation for property loss to Palestinian refugees 
 - including "internal" refugees who are Israeli citizens - in the framework 
 of an international project aimed at rehabilitating Palestinian refugees 
 either in the Palestinian state or in the countries where they currently 
 live.
 
 A concrete political item that recently entered the agenda of the 
 Palestinian-Israeli dispute is the right of Palestinians to return to their 
 original homes after the formal establishment of Israel's borders on the 
 basis of the armistice lines that were in existence on June 4, 1967, the 
 day before the
 
 outbreak of the Six Day War. Responsibility for the emergence of this item 
 on the Palestinian-Israeli dispute must be assigned to those who first 
 began to talk about the issue of "our historical right" and who turned that 
 issue into a political platform. Those who seek to impose "our historical 
 right" with the creation of a Jewish settlement in Hebron have reopened the 
 issue of Jaffa and Haifa. When Palestinian negotiators whipped out an 
 absolute demand for the fulfillment of the "right of return" to homes and 
 villages that they knew very well no longer existed, they were merely 
 responding to the impossible proposals and maps that they were receiving 
 from the Israeli side.
 
 After some 35 years of occupation, exploitation, uprooting and degradation, 
 the Palestinian people have the right to use force to oppose the Israeli 
 occupation, which, in itself, is the brutal exercise of force. Millions of 
 people cannot be forced today to remain under the subjugation of a foreign 
 occupier. Anyone who thinks otherwise is merely indulging in pipe-dreams.
 
 It is quite possible that the gravest error committed by Israel's peace 
 camp was that it did not declare those basic assumptions over and over 
 again, day in and day out - because of a lack of courage and because of 
 political and social convenience. If there really is a peace coalition in 
 this country, those assumptions must be the prime items on its agenda
 
 
 copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
 
 
 
 Haaretz Op-Ed
 
 ******************************
 Wednesday, June 6, 2001
 
 
 The basic assumptions have not collapsed
 
 By Baruch Kimmerling
 
 
 The feeling that the basic assumptions of those who advocate peace with the 
 Palestinians have collapsed and that Israel has no partners for any process 
 of conciliation with the Palestinians is groundless.Israel's peace camp is 
 disappointed in the Palestinians because they have rejected proposals that 
 "have been unprecedented in their generosity" and because they have instead 
 launched an armed struggle and a guerrilla war (that is inherently a dirty 
 business) against a foreign occupier. This situation, on the one hand, 
 provokes emotions of rage, disillusionment and profound frustration among 
 the majority of the advocates of peace in Israel, and, on the other, makes 
 Israel's colonialists (of every possible stripe) unabashedly gloat.
 
 What is even worse, however, is that some of the members of this peace camp 
 were actually collaborators - through acts of commission and omission, 
 through explicit words and in a tacit manner - with rabid chauvinism, 
 whether secular or religious, without understanding that, in fact, the very 
 concepts of that chauvinism had shattered into thousands of fragments.
 
 What are the principles of the still-valid basic assumptions of the peace 
 camp? Naturally, one must exclude the axioms of those who supported the 
 idea of "peace" when all they really hoped for was to continue to control 
 and settle the occupied territories in an indirect manner, while turning 
 the Palestinian police into a subcontractor in charge of protecting Israeli 
 interests.
 
 First of all, peace - namely, the recognition by the Arab nations of 
 Israel's legitimate right to sovereign existence - is the ultimate goal, 
 and the ideological triumph, of Zionism. All those who seek to sabotage the 
 attainment of that goal or who today define the goals of Zionism in a 
 different fashion are clearly anti-Zionists.
 
 The Jewish national movement - even if the state it established has been 
 partially built atop the ruins of the local Arab society - cannot continue 
 to act as an occupier and to rule another nation while denying the basic 
 rights of that nation. By behaving in this manner, Israel is undermining 
 both its own right to exist and, in long-range terms, its very capacity to 
 survive. The subjugation of another nation and continued expansionism are 
 corrupting Israeli society from within. The perpetuation of the existing 
 situation is leading to an intolerable increase in the brutality, 
 militarism and anti-democratic tendencies of Israeli society.
 
 The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt contains a formula for all future 
 agreements. That formula can be summed up in a nutshell as the recognition 
 of, and the establishment of peaceful relations with, Israel in return for 
 the surrendering of all the territories captured by Israel in 1967, with 
 the proviso that all the territories to be evacuated will not have even one 
 remnant or sign of foreign occupation.
 
 Deviations from this formula and its adaptation to prevailing circumstances 
 are possible, of course; however, the deviations and adaptations can be 
 made only if there is full agreement on both sides.
 
 None of the declarations of principles and none of the agreements and 
 understandings that have been obtained up to now with the Palestinians (and 
 which have all been only interim agreements) openly and explicitly mention 
 this basic principle - primarily because Israel's leaders lacked the 
 courage to publicly make the principle known to their citizens.
 
 Nevertheless, that principle has come to be perceived as a tacit agreement 
 between the parties and as one of the ultimate goals in the conciliation 
 between the Palestinians and the Israelis. When the Palestinians were 
 confronted with the demand that they declare an end to the 
 Palestinian-Israeli dispute under conditions that do not even come close to 
 the fulfillment of that principle, they naturally refused. 
 
 As of July 1974, a revolution has taken place in the political thinking of 
 the mainstream component of the Palestinian national movement. After 
 vociferous internal debates, the Palestinian National Council adopted a 
 formula that basically signified, on the one hand, the abandonment of the 
 traditional strategy of "all or nothing" and, on the other, recognition of  
 the principle of the partition of historical Palestine. That recognition 
 was made under conditions that were less favorable than those of the UN 
 General Assembly resolution on the partitioning of historical Palestine in 
 November 1947 (the UN resolution would have granted the Palestinians 22 
 percent). The Israeli response was that the council's decision was nothing 
 but a tactical move intended to destroy Israel in stages.
 
 The Palestinian right of return was not presented as a condition from the 
 time of the declaration of principles until the collapse of the peace talks 
 at Camp David. Nonetheless, the entire world realized that it was essential 
 to deal with the Palestinian refugee problem on two levels. On the symbolic 
 level, Israel must assume at least some of the responsibility for the 
 Palestinian disaster in general and for the situation of the Palestinian 
 refugees in particular.
 
 On the practical level, Israel must express a sincere willingness for - and 
 must begin (as soon as possible, even in stages) - the repatriation of an 
 agreed-upon number of Palestinian refugees, primarily in the context of 
 family reunification efforts. In this process of repatriation, Israel must 
 provide substantive compensation for property loss to Palestinian refugees 
 - including "internal" refugees who are Israeli citizens - in the framework 
 of an international project aimed at rehabilitating Palestinian refugees 
 either in the Palestinian state or in the countries where they currently 
 live.
 
 A concrete political item that recently entered the agenda of the 
 Palestinian-Israeli dispute is the right of Palestinians to return to their 
 original homes after the formal establishment of Israel's borders on the 
 basis of the armistice lines that were in existence on June 4, 1967, the 
 day before the
 
 outbreak of the Six Day War. Responsibility for the emergence of this item 
 on the Palestinian-Israeli dispute must be assigned to those who first 
 began to talk about the issue of "our historical right" and who turned that 
 issue into a political platform. Those who seek to impose "our historical 
 right" with the creation of a Jewish settlement in Hebron have reopened the 
 issue of Jaffa and Haifa. When Palestinian negotiators whipped out an 
 absolute demand for the fulfillment of the "right of return" to homes and 
 villages that they knew very well no longer existed, they were merely 
 responding to the impossible proposals and maps that they were receiving 
 from the Israeli side.
 
 After some 35 years of occupation, exploitation, uprooting and degradation, 
 the Palestinian people have the right to use force to oppose the Israeli 
 occupation, which, in itself, is the brutal exercise of force. Millions of 
 people cannot be forced today to remain under the subjugation of a foreign 
 occupier. Anyone who thinks otherwise is merely indulging in pipe-dreams.
 
 It is quite possible that the gravest error committed by Israel's peace 
 camp was that it did not declare those basic assumptions over and over 
 again, day in and day out - because of a lack of courage and because of 
 political and social convenience. If there really is a peace coalition in 
 this country, those assumptions must be the prime items on its agenda
 
 
 copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
 
 
 
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