[GushShalom] Avnery on Mitzna's chances / imprisoned COs start hunger strike

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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     Gush Shalom
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Jan. 19, 2003

[] Avnery on Mitzna's chances
[] Two objectors go on hunger strike in prison

[] Avnery on Mitzna's chances

The Fat Lady Has Not Yet Sung 

Uri Avnery
18.1.03

     What is the difference between soap and a political leader?
     Ask any of the “experts”, copywriters and “strategists”, and he will tell you: None. Selling 
soap and selling a leader is one and the same. One does marketing research, finds out what 
the consumers (= the voters) want and gives it to them. All one needs is some good 
copywriters.
     My own answer is: There is a hell of a difference.
     Who am I to talk? Well, I am not quite an outsider. I have fought four hard election 
campaigns, three on behalf of the Haolam Hazeh – New Force Movement (1965, 1969, 1973) 
and one on behalf of the Sheli party (1977). I won three and lost one. I have tasted both victory 
and defeat and know the pressures, provocations and temptations lying in wait. In this respect 
there is really not much of a difference between the campaigns of a small and a big party.
     From my first experience, I drew a set of conclusions which I tried to apply later on:
     First, Define your message and stick to it, without deviating left or right, whatever the 
temptations may be (and there are a lot).
     Second, The message must express your inner truth. Otherwise it will convince nobody. 
     Third, The message must suit the image you have acquired before. It is very difficult to 
change that image during the campaign. One can only reinforce and sharpen the image that is 
already there.
     Forth, The message must be simple, clear and easy to absorb. 
     Five, Don’t stutter! Don’t defend yourself! Don’t apologize!
     For a candidate for Prime Minister, this is not enough. He must arouse the public – if not by 
his personality, then by his message. He must dictate the battlefield, so that his opponent will 
be compelled to fight where he is weak. He must attack, so that his opponent will be on the 
defensive. He must not follow the public opinion polls, but rather create a new political reality 
that will produce different opinion polls.
     When Amram Mitzna appeared on the scene, I hoped that he would do all this. Indeed, I 
expressed this hope in this column.
    From the start he had a new and invigorating message: To place peace at the head of the 
agenda. To reopen the negotiations that were killed by Ehud Barak. To negotiate under fire, 
because that is the only way to stop the fire. To talk with Yasser Arafat, because he is the only 
person able to sign a peace agreement, if convinced, and convince his people to accept it. To 
achieve peace between the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine. And even before 
that, to order the unilateral withdrawal from all the Gaza Strip, the dismantling of all the 
settlements there and the isolated settlements on the West Bank.
     This message has a great potential: The Israeli public is fed up with the situation, it knows 
already that there is no military solution, and it is being told that there is no political solution, 
either. There is no security, the economy is in tatters, there is no solution in sight. Therefore, 
the voters are escaping from the serious problems to trivial ones, such as those personified by 
Tommy Lapid of the Shinui party. There was a need for a person like Mitzna, in order to 
rekindle hope and, perhaps, to win. That was the way to invigorate his party, win more seats in 
the next Knesset and prepare it for victory at the next round.
     I knew that this would be difficult. The Labor party was not ready for a glorious enterprise. 
After two years as a national whore in Sharon’s government, it is old and tired, a pitiful sight 
indeed. The party hacks did not believe in victory and conspired to bring the new man down.
     Worse, the “advisers” chained Mitzna as the lilliputians did to Gulliver. Don’t talk about 
peace, they warned him. Don’t even mention this terrible word. Peace is poison. The public 
does not believe in peace. It wants a wall of separation. The wall is popular. So talk only wall, 
wall, wall. Everybody hates Arafat, join them.
     The advisors have succeeded in dimming Mitzna’s vision. The rousing clarion call sounded 
sometimes like disjointed sounds. They made peace disappear without a trace, they turned the 
wall into an overriding aim. They talked about what to do “if there is nobody to speak with” - 
killing the very hope that was supposed to carry their man to victory. They worshipped the polls.
      The polls can indeed lead a politician to his downfall. They are part of a vicious circle: when 
one tells the public what it wants to hear, one necessarily voices worn-out and banal ideas. If 
one voices worn-out and banal ideas, one cannot excite the public. One is boring.
     Mitzna has not strayed from his original message. In spite of all the temptations, he has not 
uttered a word that contradicts it. In an election campaign, a candidate may be excused for 
emphasizing one part of his message more than another, in order to gain votes, but the 
question is: is it wise? 
      That is the real debate: should Mitzna dim his message in order to attract the voters who 
waver between Labor, the Likud and Shinui – or should he do just the opposite. Should he 
sharpen his message and tell the public that there is hope, that peace is possible, that there is 
somebody to talk with, that a government headed by him will effect the historical breakthrough 
started by Rabin and bungled by Barak?
     It seems that Mitzna himself is hesitating between the two conflicting options. Therefore, he 
was unable to dictate the battlefield. Tommy Lapid, a man with an irrelevant but popular 
message, succeeded in doing this with his talk about a “secular unity government”, a pipe-
dream, but a dream that arouses hope in a public intent on escaping from reality.
     In the end, the battle will be decided as a confrontation between the two leaders. Sharon is 
a dangerous, unscrupulous and disastrous person, but he radiates leadership in a way that 
goes straight to the collective unconscious of the masses. Mitzna is a sane, sober, honest and 
reasonable person, and perhaps because of this he lacks this radiation. He can excite only 
through his vision.  
     This is not yet the end. As the Americans say, “The opera is not finished till the fat lady 
sings.” 
     There are 10 days left. Mitzna must use them in order to sharpen the message and call the 
whole camp to the decisive struggle. Already he has taken a courageous step by declaring 
unequivocally that he will under no circumstances join a new Sharon-led government of national 
disaster. 
     As I have said from the beginning, it needs a miracle for Mitzna to win this time. Such a 
miracle can still happen. But even if it does not, he can stiffen the back of his party and instill it 
with a new spirit, so as to enable it to bring down the next rightist government, if there will be 
one. As Menachem Begin said in his time: We shall serve our people in opposition.  
     Whatever the outcome of this round, the real struggle has only started. 

[] Two objectors go on hunger strike in prison
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:02:50 +0200
From:           	Sergeiy Sandler <sergeiy at netvision.net.il>

Objectors to Military Service in Israel Go on Hunger Strike in Prison

On Thursday, 16 January 2003, two imprisoned conscientious objectors to
military service, Noam Bahat and Hillel Goral, went on hunger strike. Both
are among the signatories of a letter signed last year by over 300 high
school students, declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army (see
their website at www.shministim.org). Both objectors are serving a second
consecutive prison term in defence of their convictions and are held in the
isolation ward of Military Prison No. 4, south of Tel-Aviv.

Hillel Goral was sentenced to 42 days in prison No 4. He originally got 28
days, but 14 more days were added to his term because he refused to wear a
uniform and cut his hair. For the same reason he was sent to the isolation
ward. Noam Bahat was sentenced to 28 days in prison no. 4. Noam Bahat writes in his 
declaration: "I declare a hunger strike as a protest on my confinement in a military jail because
of my views against the occupation fop the Palestinian people. I am also
protesting against the occupation itself." 

We demand that the democratic right of conscientious objectors not to
perform military service be recognized and call upon the Ministry of Defence
and the Israeli military to release them at once.

Draft resisters are being sentenced to several consecutive terms of
imprisonment for the same ‘offence’. On Thursday, 16 January, conscientious
objector Jonathan Ben-Artzi was sentenced by Gen. Gil Regev, head of the
military manpower division, to 35 days in military prison. This is the
seventh consecutive prison term for Ben-Artzi, raising the total length of
his imprisonment so far to 196 days. A recently opened online petition
against the practice of repeated imprisonment of objectors has already
gathered over 1000 signatures worldwide
(see http://www.petitiononline.com/091202/).

The imprisonment of these objectors is in clear violation of their
fundamental human rights as recognized in international treaties signed and
ratified by Israel.

All in all, we are presently aware of 10 young men held in prison due to
their refusal to perform regular military service on conscientious grounds.
They are joined by conscripts and reserves soldiers imprisoned due to their
refusal to fight in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

The Israeli movement of objectors, including organizations, such as New
Profile, the Seniors’ Letter, Yesh-Gvul and Courage to Refuse, calls for the
immediate and unconditional release from prison of all objectors, without
fear of further imprisonment of young people obeying their conscience.


New Profile – Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society
(www.newprofile.org)
The Seniors’ Letter (www.shministim.org)
Yesh-Gvul (www.yesh-gvul.org)
Courage to Refuse (www.seruv.org.il)
The Objectors’ Parents Group


N.B. You can protest against repeated imprisonment of draft resisters - with no end in sight - at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/091202/

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