[GushShalom] Avnery on anti-Semitism & forwarded alerts other groups
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Sun Nov 23 22:57:00 IST 2003
GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org
[] Anti-Semitism
(Avnery's acceptance speech for the Lev Kopelev prize.)
[] Forwarded alerts & reports other groups
Tomorrow's outpost tour & olive harvest & court case etc.
\\// //\\ \\// //\\ \\//
[] Anti-Semitism
(Avnery's acceptance speech for the Lev Kopelev prize.)
Uri Avnery
22.11.03
(Instead of my usual weekly article, this time I am sending my acceptance
speech on receiving, together with Sari Nusseibeh, the Lev Kopelev prize.
The award ceremony took place last week in Cologne, Germany.)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Ambassador of Palestine and the former Ambassador of Israel,
(I am sorry that I am unable to greet the present Israeli Ambassador, since
he did not see fit to attend,)
Dear friends,
Every time I stand on German soil, I ask myself: What and where would
I be now, if Adolf Hitler had never been?
Would I be standing here with Sari Nusseibeh? Would I be an Israeli at
all?
I was born not far from here, in Beckum, Westphalia. My grandfather,
Josef Ostermann, was the teacher of the small Jewish community there.
But my family originally came from the Rhineland. My mother once told
me the name of the place, but I have forgotten it. Now there is no one left
to ask.
My father, who attended the "humanist" high school where Latin was
taught as the first foreign language, always maintained that we had come
to Germany with Julius Ceasar. However, no archaeological proof of this
has yet been uncovered.
The family was steeped in German culture. My father, an enthusiastic
music-lover, adored Brahms and Beethoven. His favorite piece was the
overture to Wagner's Meistersinger. No work of classic German literature
was missing from our bookshelves, and I had read almost all of them
before my 15th birthday.
Father knew both parts of Goethe's Faust by heart. When he was
engaged to my mother in 1913, he stipulated that before the wedding she
must learn the first part of Faust by heart. Mother's condition was that my
father must learn to play tennis. They both fulfilled the conditions, but a
day after the wedding my mother forgot every word of Faust and my father
never played tennis again.
What caused this family, the family Ostermann, to leave Germany in
1933 forever, and to go to a far-away, foreign country, the country of the
Nusseibeh family?
One word: anti-Semitism.
It is true that my father had always been a Zionist. He was nine years
old when the First Zionist Congress took place. The idea excited him. As a
wedding gift he received a document confirming that a tree had been
planted in Palestine in his name. But he never imagined that he himself
would one day go there.
(A joke current at the time: "What is a Zionist? A Jew who takes the
money of a second Jew in order to send a third Jew to Palestine.")
The Zionists were then a miniscule minority in the German Jewish
communities. Among our relatives it was said that my father had become a
Zionist only because he had a contrary disposition. (It seems to run in the
family.)
Shortly after the Nazis' rise to power, my father decided to emigrate. The
immediate cause was small. My father was a court-appointed receiver of
bankrupt businesses. His honesty was proverbial, he was "straight as a
die". One day, during a session of the court, a young lawyer cried out:
"Jews like you are not needed here anymore!" My father was deeply
offended, and from that moment Germany was finished for him. I still
believe that a feeling of insult played a large part in the divorce between
the Jews and Germany.
Where to? For a short while, Finland and the Philippines were
considered. But Zionist romanticism decided the issue. We went to
Palestine, and since then, the destiny of my family has been irrevocably
intertwined with the destiny of the Nusseibeh family. I was then ten years
old.
When my father went to Police headquarters to give notice of our
departure, as required by law, the police officer exclaimed: "But Mr.
Ostermann, what has entered your head? After all, you are a German like
me!"
I tell this story frequently, in order to warn my Palestinian friends not to
be tempted to consider the anti-Semites as their allies. On the surface it
seems logical: the anti-Semites hate the Jews, the Jews are the majority in
Israel, Israel oppresses the Palestinians, so the anti-Semites must be the
friends of the Palestinians.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Without anti-Semitism, Zionism would never have been born. True, the
Zionist myth asserts that in every generation the Jews were longing for
Palestine, but any such longing was limited to prayers. As a matter of fact,
throughout the centuries, the Jews made not the slightest effort to gather
in Palestine.
A small example: 511 years ago, half a million Jews were expelled from
Christian Spain. Most of them settled somewhere in the Muslim Ottoman
empire, which received them graciously. They settled down in countries
like Morocco, Bulgaria, Greece and Syria. But only a tiny handful of
Rabbis settled in Palestine, then a remote corner of the Turkish Sultan's
domains.
Muslims turn in prayer to Mecca, Jews turn in prayer to Jerusalem. But
that has nothing to do with the Zionist idea of a Jewish state.
Modern political Zionism was clearly a reaction to the modern anti-
Semitism of the national movements in Europe. It is no coincidence that
the term "anti-Semitism", which was coined in Germany in 1879, was
followed only a few years later by the word "Zionism", which was first
used by a Vienna-born Jew, Nathan Birnbaum.
It was a response to the challenge. If he new national movements in
Europe, practically without exception, do not want to have anything to do
with the Jews, then the Jews must constitute themselves as a nation in the
European sense and found their own state.
Where? In the land of the Bible, then called Palestine.
Thus started the historic conflict between our two peoples, the people
of Sari Nusseibeh and my people, a conflict that is today - in 2003 - more
vicious than ever. It began when the Zionists wanted to realize their aim,
to save the Jews from Europe, and the Palestinian Arabs wanted to realize
their aim, to achieve freedom and independence in their homeland, in the
same little country, without having any idea of each other.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement, wrote in
his diary, after the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897: "In Basel I
founded the Jewish State." At the time he had never been to Palestine, he
had no idea who lived there. A fellow activist coined the memorable
phrase: "A land without a people for a people without a land." For them,
Palestine was empty, uninhabited.
But the grandfather of Sari Nusseibeh was living in Palestine at the
time, together with another half million Arabs. They had no idea - and
could have no idea - that somewhere in Switzerland, in a town they
probably had never heard of, a meeting was taking place, whose results
would change forever their own fate and the fate of their children and
grandchildren, their family, their town, their village and their country.
Anti-Semitism set Zionism in motion, the Holocaust lent it tremendous
moral power, even today it sends masses of Jews from Russia, Argentina
and France to Israel.
The Palestinians have many enemies - but none is as dangerous as anti-
Semitism. If in some Arab countries an effort is made to import this foreign
anti-Semitism from Europe, it is a fateful mistake.
Sari Nusseibeh and I, two Semites who speak closely related Semitic
languages, must be allies in the battle against this old-new mental disease.
I believe that we are.
I want to add at once: the curse of anti-Semitism must not be abused in
order to choke every criticism of my state. We Israelis want to be a people
like any other people, a state like every other state, to be measured by the
same moral standards as others.
Yes, here, in Germany, too.
No Sonderbehandlung, please.
The conflict has now been going on for more than a hundred years. On
both sides, a fifth generation has been born into it, a generation whose
whole mental world has been shaped by it. Fear, hatred, prejudices,
stereotypes and distrust fill this world.
We are standing on the edge of an abyss, and in both peoples there are
leaders who command: Forward, march!
We are here because we want to save our peoples from this abyss,
because we want to show them another way.
The state of Israel exists, nobody can throw us into the sea. The
Palestinian people exists, nobody can push them out into the desert. Our
Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, wants to turn all of Palestine into a Jewish
state. Muslim fundamentalists, like the Hamas and Jihad movements, want
to include all of Palestine in a Muslim state. That is the direct route to
catastrophe.
We both believe in peace and reconciliation between our two peoples.
Not only do we believe in it, we work and struggle for it, each in his own
way.
Together we have taken part in many actions. On New Year's eve 2001,
we marched together, arm in arm, through the alleys of the Old City of
Jerusalem, at the head of a large group of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
But our main task is to convince our own peoples that peace and
reconciliation are possible, that on both sides there is a readiness to pay
the price of peace.
These are not abstract aspirations. Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace bloc
to which I belong, published a peace agreement in all its details in 2001.
Not long ago, Sari Nusseibeh, together with the former Israeli security
service chief, Ami Ayalon, articulated the principles of a peaceful solution.
Now a new group of Israeli and Palestinian politicians has worked out in
Geneva the draft of a peace treaty.
The bloody confrontation that has been raging in our country for three
years now is a symptom of hopelessness, frustration and despair on both
sides. Of course, there can be no symmetry between occupiers and
occupied, rulers and ruled. The violence of the occupation cannot be
compared with the violence of the resistance. But the hopelessness and
distrust on both sides is comparable, and our task is to overcome it.
We follow the age-old wisdom: Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.
Together with our partners, the thousands of peace activists of both
peoples, we have already lighted a lot of candles.
I am an optimist. I believe that the darkness of despair is slowly giving
way to the twilight of hope, that it is getting lighter. In Israel, the
conviction is gaining ground that the shedding of blood leads nowhere.
Thirty of our combat pilots refuse to follow immoral orders. The number
of conscientious objectors among our soldiers is growing. The Chief-of-
Staff, until recently an extreme hawk, has talked back to his superiors and
declared that there is no military solution. The Geneva peace talks have
had an impact, they show that there are indeed partners for peace. Parents
of fallen soldiers protest publicly against the senseless sacrificing of their
children.
A new wind is blowing. A new hope is emerging. We shall do
everything possible to make this hope grow, in order to bring about a
historic change.
As a member of Gush Shalom, I gratefully accept this award. I am
especially proud that it bears the name of Lev Kopelev. All fighters for
peace and human rights in Israel, Palestine and the whole world belong to
an international community, for whom Lev Kopelev is a model figure.
I thank you. We shall not disappoint you.
[] Forwarded alerts & reports other groups
# Peace Now tour to the existing settlement outposts
# Olive Harvest Weekly Schedule - Starting Tomorrow!
# South Gate completely inaccessible in Jayyous
# Indian American activist to sue Israel (Jayyous related)
# Yesh-Gvul: marking the border + refuser solidarity update
# Peace Now tour to the existing settlement outposts
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: Yariv Oppenheimer <yariv at peacenow.org.il>
Date sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 14:18:39 +0200
Subject: [PeaceNow] Peace Now tour to the existing outposts
Talking is one thing, Actions is another
Peace Now tour to the existing outposts
Peace now will hold a tour, tomorrow, Monday - November 24,
2003 to the Outposts in the Shomron area- to see with your
own eyes those points that have flourished in the past two
years.
Departure: TLV 07:30 from the Northern Train Station
JRS 08:30 The Liberty Bell Garden
JRS 09:00 THE Knesset
Note: The Tour will be traveling in a bulletproof bus and
accompanied by many Members of Knesset.
For further information:
Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now Spokesman
yariv at peacenow.org.il
Mobile: 054-200060
from outside Israel: 972-54-200060
***
# Olive Harvest Weekly Schedule - Starting Tomorrow!
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Rabbis for Human Rights" <info at rhr.israel.net>
Date sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:02:25 +0200
Dear Members and Supporters,
Although the harvest for tomorrow is not yet finalized, we intend to leave
for the village of Zvuva in the Jenin area from the Gan Hapa'amon parking
lot at 05h30, and from the Rosh Ha'ayin train station at 06h30. If you are
interested in participating please be in touch with the office today until
17h00. 02-563-7731. After 17h00 please be in touch with Arik directly on
050-607034.
The harvest on Wednesday in planned for the village of Kafin in the Ariel
area. Please join us!
Thursday, we plan to harvest in Distaria. Please be in touch to register.
Please call Tamar from 9h30 to 17h00.
Olive oil is available from the RHR office
25 NIS per liter, 350 NIS per jerrycan
Rabbis For Human Rights
Tel. 972 2 563-7731
Fax. 972 2 566-2815
Mobile 972 50607034
info at rhr.israel.net
Website: rhr.israel.net
Website: rhr.israel.net
***
# South Gate completely inaccessible in Jayyous
-----------Forwarded message follows-------
From: "ISM Media Office" <ism-alert at palsolidarity.org>
Date sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 14:29:28 +0200
Subject: [palsolidarity]
For Immediate Release
November 23, 2003
FAMILY AND FARMERS ISOLATED BY NEW BARRIERS AT THE
SOUTH GATE OF JAYYOUS
[Jayyous, West Bank] Early Sunday morning, the Israeli army placed nine
metal stakes in the road leading to the south gate in the Separation
Wall and strung rows of razor wire around these stakes, creating a
barrier that will prevent access for the Abu Amar family and farmers from
Jayyous who pass through the gate daily.
Zarifi, the mother of the Abu Amar family, has spent the past two days in
the village due to being denied access to her home by Israeli soldiers. This
morning, the military created a passage in the razor wire coils for Zarifi to
return to her home a half a kilometer beyond the gate to meet her children
and then pass back through the gate and new wire barrier.
The military told the family and International Solidarity Movement
volunteers present that the south gate would now be closed indefinitely to
anyone other than the Abu Amar family. The soldiers said that the 20
farmers with 700 dunams of land isolated beyond the south gate must now
access their land through the west gate, the second and only other gate in
Jayyous.
The Abu Amar family is one that has already been completely cut off from
the village of Jayyous by the Wall. This one family must pass through the
gate daily to travel between the village and their isolated home to get to
school, to access the village to purchase food and to receive water. Since
August there have been 3 tank-loads of water passed through the Wall to
the Abu Amar family, but this will no longer be possible with the new
barriers erected today.
Please take action and let the Israeli authorities know that this violation of
basic human rights cannot stand and demand they grant access for the
family of Abu Amar and the farmers of Jayyous.
Israeli District Command Office
Phone: +972 97 922 234 / +972 97 759 219
Israeli Ministry of Defense
Email: sar at mod.gov.il or pniot at mod.gov.il
Fax: +972 3 696 27 57 / +972 3 691 69 40 / +972 3 691 79 15
For more information contact:
Tracie (English): +972 65 203 543
Henry (English): +972 67 343 298
Allam (Arabic): +972 66 391 832
***
# Indian American activist to sue Israel (Jayyous related)
International Solidarity Movement volunteer Radhika Sainath, from
Orange County, California is suing the state of Israel on Thursday,
November 27 for unlawful imprisonment, negligence and breach of
obligations. Leading human rights lawyer Shamai Leibowitz will be
representing Ms. Sainath, who was seized by Israeli soldiers last
November in the olive groves of the West Bank village Jayyous.
Ms. Sainath will testify against the gross misconduct of Israeli
authorities in handling her arrest, during which she was prohibited from
calling her lawyer, not served with an arrest warrant and transferred to
multiple holding centers over 48 hours, causing her to suffer mental trauma
and agony.
Eight other internationals and 1 Israeli were detained along with Ms.
Sainath after observing hundreds of Palestinians pray at the site of olive
trees bulldozed for the creation of the “security” Wall. Three of the
internationals were deported.
News agencies, Israelis, and Internationals are invited to attend this
hearing in support of Radhika Sainath.
Judge David Geldstein
12PM Thursday, November 27
Tel Aviv Magistrate Court
1 Weizman Street, Tel Aviv
For more information call:
Radhika Sainath 065 203 596
Attorney Shamai Leibowitz 064 414 505
11:00 am Sunday, November 2
Tel Aviv Magistrate Court
1 Weizman Street, Tel Aviv
***
# Yesh-Gvul: marking the border + refuser solidarity update
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "ram & michaela rahat" <rahat at bezeqint.net>
Date sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 12:14:02 +0200
Subject:
Actions Section
Bloodshed without end?
Only if we blunder on without purpose!
Confronted with a government that:
Insists on building settlements and giving a stamp of legality to
"outposts;
Seeks toimprison the Palestinian populationwithin enclosed ghettoes;
Continues to post soldiers at roadblocks where they are sitting ducks;
Erodes education, health and welfare, out of a preference for stones and
soil over human beings -
We proclaim that there is another way!
Friday 28/11, at 12:30, we shall MARK THE BORDER (in central Israel) to
remind Israelis heading east of there that they are crossing the border and
entering occupied territory. Join us, because change is possible, but not
from your armchair.
Transportation:
Jerusalem (Binyanei Ha'umma)11:00
Tel Aviv (El Al terminal, northern railway station): 11:00
There's a Limit to the week
16 - 22/11/2003
Criminal section
The Liars
The cat was out of the bag this week. We can hardly argue with the
tabloids Maariv and Yediot Aharonot (among others) who affirmed that
the IAF commander, theIDF chief-of-staff andthe Minister of Defense, all
knowingly lied about the air force strike at the Nusseirat refugee camp
which killed 12 innocent bystanders. They lied to the pilots of the air force
and the public at large. They even lied to the IDF spokeswoman (probably
out of the macho conviction that a woman can't keep a secret).Now
they're trying to tell us it was a "technical" lie. The missiles fired must
have been rubber-coated.Their chutzpeh(look it up) is without limit.
But there are limits to restraint. This week Yesh Gvul's legal department
urged the army's Judge Advocate General (who shows such touching
concern for the consciences of the "shministim" draft resisters) to order
the army's criminal police to launch an investigation into the killing of
innocent civilians.
Link to Guardian's article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1089989,00.html
Sitting ducks
This week two IDF soldiers were killed at the roadblock on the "tunnel
road" to Gush Etzion. The roadblockguards an Apartheid road ("for Jews
only" (near the sealed-off Palestinian villages of al-Khader and Hussan,
which are blocked to make sure they give no trouble to the Gush Etzion
settlers. The two soldiers were killed there, just as others were cut down
earlier at Ein Yavroud and Netzarim, where they were posted to protect the
settlers. How much longer will Sharon and Co. offer up soldiers' lives on
the altar of occupation?
Prison Section
Reservists:
Yiftah Cohen, astudent of law, philosphy and literature, was sentenced to
21 days inMilitary Prison #4 for his refusal to take part in repression of the
civilian population in the Gush Etzion area (see"Sitting Ducks")
Tom Mehager and Gil Avimelech are still held at Prison #6
Guy Shalev, Ezra Peres, Tzachy Lavi, Ariel Handlass and Shahar Ido
remain at Prison #4
Messages of support to: dash at seruv.org.il
Full details: http://yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
Held in Isolation:
Yoel Perlman, a pacifist serving a fourth sentence, is held in isolation at
Prison #4. He is to be courtmartialed on Nov. 27 2003.
Messages of support to: lipperl at actcom.co.il
Konstantin Susskin, a pacifist, is likewise held in isolation at Prison #4:
Letters of support to Yoel and Konstantin to: Agaf Bidud, Military Prison
#4, POB 02507, IDF, Israel
In all fairness
The IDF advocates gender equality ! A woman pacifist is equally
deserving of imprisonment!
Inbal Gelbert was jailed for 12 days after refusing to enlist in the army.
Gelbert's requests for a referral to the "conscience committee" have yet to
elicit a response. She awaits the army's decision.
In "open detention":
Yoni Ben Artzi, a pacifist, was convicted by a courtmartial and now awaits
sentencing;
Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Tzameret, Adam Maor and Noam
Bahat await the military court's verdict in their case
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 28/11, at the "green line".
***
If you do not really believe us and feel Gush Shalom is exaggerating then
go to the following Haaretz page:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/360916.html
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http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (òáøéú)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)
with
\\photos - of actions
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English
\\the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and English
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more
######################
Petitions against the Wall:
http://www.gader.org/Main/engPetition.asp (for Israelis)
http://www.petitiononline.com/stw/petition.html (international petition)
######################
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