[GushShalom] Report from Jenin; Avnery on polls + recommended ulrs
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Sat Jul 6 17:30:14 IDT 2002
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
[1] International activists report from besieged Jenin hospital
[2] Avnery on Opinion Polls
[3] Recommended in Ha'aretz online
(a) Gideon Levy: Buried with chocolate in his hand
(b) Ze'ev Schiff: The dangers of a political vacuum
(c) Aluf Benn: Ariel Sharon agrees to his own ideas
(d) Orly Halpern: Seminar 'dialogue on pain' opens path to understanding
[1] International activists report from besieged Jenin hospital
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: Huwaida Arraf <huwaidaa at yahoo.com>
July 6, 2002, 08:40
For immediate release
JENIN HOSPITAL UNDER SIEGE BY ISRAELI FORCES
International Activists at Hospital
[JENIN] International peace activists with the International Solidarity Movement report
that at 4 AM Israeli tanks entered Jenin, occupied houses, and shot throughout the
city. At 6 AM the tanks and soldiers surrounded the Jenin hospital and positioned
snipers around the hospital. Ten tanks, three APCs and a number of jeeps are
involved in this operation at the hospital. The hospital is now effectively closed by the
military and a tight curfew is in effect for Jenin.
Seven internationals are trying to escort civilians and provide a presence in each of the
wards of the hospital. At around 6:30 AM this morning Caiomhe Butterly escorted one
pregnant woman whose water had already broken and was about to give birth. On the
way into the hospital, one soldier held his rifle to the woman's stomach and threatened
to shoot. Only with the intervention of Caiomhe did the soldiers finally allow the
woman entrance to the hospital.
The Israeli soldiers allege there are armed men inside the hospital and have told the
director of the hospital that the Israeli forces will remain until the Palestinians turn
themselves in. The director of the hospital denies that any armed men are inside the
hospital and has appealed for intervention to lift the siege on the hospital.
For more information in Jenin contact:
Caiomhe Butterly – 055-975-374
Rebecca Murray – 055-558-954
Tobias Karlsson – 067-362-344
For more information on The International Solidarity Movement contact:
Huwaida Arraf – 052-642-709 or 067-473-308
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
http://www.palsolidarity.org
[2] Avnery on Opinion Polls
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Uri Avnery" <avnery at actcom.co.il>
Hi,
Hope this may shed some light on things.
Salamaat, Shalom,
uri
A Maddened Cow
Uri Avnery, 6.7.02
Israel is the only state in the world that has a population of 200%. And that's a fact.
Public opinion polls show that it has two simultaneous majorities. One is peace-
loving, the other supports extreme nationalism.
At the present time, it looks like this: In every public opinion poll there is a large
majority that supports the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Sharon wants, of course, to
enlarge the settlements, intensify the war against the Palestinians, eliminate Yasser
Arafat, postpone a permanent solution and refuse any peace negotiations until
unattainable conditions are met. Anyone who supports him must be a radical right-
winger.
But the very same public opinion polls show also that a majority agrees to withdraw
from (almost) all the occupied territories, dismantle (almost) all settlements and
accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in return for peace.
How is this possible? Can a state have a population of more than 100%? If so,
Israel is a very special country.
This curious situation did not come about yesterday. It started long ago.
I remember public opinion polls of more than 20 tears ago, which also revealed two
majorities. The first majority supported the idea of expelling all Arabs from the country
west of the Jordan river. The second one supported a withdrawal from the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip. Together with those who were against both proposals, this totaled
200%.
Statisticians and sociologists examined, researched, shook their collective heads,
shrugged their shoulders, raised both hands and thought: a crazy people. Doesn't
know what it wants. Mixed up. Schizophrenic. Suffering from a split personality.
But the people were not mad at all. The professors just did not know how to read
the results of their polls.
What the public tried to say was: If it were possible to drive out all the Arabs, that
would be wonderful. If it's impossible, let's get the hell out of there.
Why? For a simple reason: the one thing that unifies almost all Jewish Israelis is
the wish to live in a state where there are only Jews. If we could achieve such a state
in all the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, O.K. If not, let's
leave the occupied territories. Not "land for peace", but "withdrawal for the sake of
safeguarding a homogeneous Jewish state". This is the majority opinion, and there is,
indeed, only one majority.
Some call this "racist". Some call it "nationalist". Some say that this is
"apartheid". But this attitude is rooted in the fact that for thousands of years Jews have
lived as a religious-ethnic community dispersed throughout the world and often suffered
cruel persecution (especially in the Christian world). They have developed a ghetto
mentality. They want to live among themselves, separate from others, surrounded by a
high fence.
Zionism wanted to achieve this by establishing a state where the Jews would live
together, without Goyim (Gentiles). Even the presence of a considerable minority (the
Arab citizens) in Israel creates severe mental stress. For most Israelis, the ideal
situation would be a state without a single non-Jewish citizen. (The presence of foreign
workers does not bother anybody; it is temporary, and they are devoid of any rights.)
Lately this aspiration has found new expression in an idea which is becoming quite
popular: to transfer the Israeli Arab villages adjoining the West Bank, together with
their inhabitants, to the future Palestinian state, which means giving up territory so that
Israel will have less non-Jewish citizens.
This is quite unusual. The French, for example, have shed rivers of blood in order to
keep Alsace, whose people are of German descent. India is ready to wage a nuclear
war in order to keep Kashmir, which is populated by Muslims. For other nations,
territory is more important than a homogeneous population, geography precedes
demography. Israelis, too, like territory - but demography is by far more important to
them.
One example: after the 1956 war, during which Israel conquered the Sinai and the
Gaza Strip, David Ben-Gurion was compelled to give up the Sinai. At the time there
was a clamor from the right and the left to annex the Gaza Strip. Ben-Gurion
adamantly refused, because he did not want to increase the number of Arab citizens
by hundreds of thousands at any price. (The brilliant idea of an eternal military
occupation, which allows the occupier to abstain from conferring citizenship on the
occupied population, was not yet invented.)
Today, too, there is only one majority in Israel. Most Israelis are ready to pay the
price demanded for peace. So why do they support Sharon, who represents the
opposite? For one simple reason: they have been brought to believe that "we have no
partner". There is a complete unanimity, from Avigdor Liberman and Effy Eitam on the
right to Haim Ramon and Yossi Sarid on the "left", that "there is no partner". And
since there is no partner for peace, let's support Sharon, who knows (or so it seems)
how to wage war. The aim of this brainwashing is precisely to make it possible to keep
the occupied territories and, God willing, to drive the Palestinians out.
The real criminal in this story is Ehud Barak. In order to hide his monumental
failure as a peace-maker, he created the legend that "we offered them everything and
they rejected everything." This historic lie is the connecting link between the two
seemingly contradictory results of the polls: the majority is ready to pay the price of
peace but does not believe that peace is possible. So let's support Sharon.
There is no riddle here. Israel is not a mad cow. It is, at most, a maddened cow.
[3] Recommended in Ha'aretz online
(a) Gideon Levy: Buried with chocolate in his hand
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=182987&contrassID=2&
subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
(b) Ze'ev Schiff: The dangers of a political vacuum
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=183464&contrassID=2&
subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
(c) Aluf Benn: Ariel Sharon agrees to his own ideas
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=183743&displayTypeCd
=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2
(d) Orly Halpern: Seminar 'dialogue on pain' opens path to understanding
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=183481&contrassID=2&subContrassID=
5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=183481
========================================
Why are the volunteer international observers important?
Because the United Nations don't send a protection force
Information about the International Solidarity Movement
- and how to support it in different ways -
at http://www.palsolidarity.org/
==========================
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