Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Comments on "Letter To Obama" and My Response

Sent 26.Nov.2008

Having read my letter to Obama, a good friend sent me some comments, to which I also responded.


THE LETTER AND COMMENTS FROM MY FRIEND:
"..........I agree with you and others that the only solution is a two-state solution. But stating this solution is easy. Knowing what the solution is, is not difficult! The difficulty is in establishing the trust on both sides to enable each side to gamble on the vey many steps that must be taken by each to approach and achieve the two-state solution. Despite your own laudable individual activities to bring about better understanding with the people of a small town in the West Bank and even taken together with similar activities of other like minded persons, your and their activities are just that; activities taken by individuals. I imagine you feel that if only the peoples could act, as opposed to the governments acting, we would be closer to a solution. But the reality, through my eyes, is that agreements between national entities are made by governments, not by individuals. There is nothing that I know of (I am open to being enlightened) which suggests to me that the PLA is interested in a two state solution. I think that it has yet to unequivocally and publicly repudiate its stated goal of destroying Israel. I think they have yet to do much to curtail terrorist attacks against Israel. I think that through the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt, Hamas, the democratically elected government of the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank are preparing to inflict great damage on Israel, not to mention the recently resumed rocket fire. I believe that if they had the power, the West Bank and Gazan Arabs would slaughter the Jews of Israel. I believe the only thing not allowing this is the power of Israel and the presence pf the IDF in the West Bank and around Gaza.

I am dismayed that you, like so many others, call on (Barack to call on) Israel alone to do this or do that or to stop this and stop that with no mention of any actions that the PLA should take. A lot of Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists and other riminals have been freed from Israeli jails; for what? How about asking for some gestures of good will from them. Why don't you also call on President Obama to call on the PLA to free Gilad Shalit instead of their using his as a pawn to blackmail Israel; to stop its indiscriminate rocketing of Sderot, Ashkelon (The separation of Gaza and the West Bank works very well for Abu Mazen, don't you think?); to allow the IDF to leave the West Bank by fulfilling their responsibility to curtail terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure. I know, it's Israel's fault that they aren't able to do this. What other government has ever given arms to a hostile government to build its internal security forces, even when that hostile government has a stated goal of its destruction; to clearly, unequivocally, and publicly in English, Arabic, and Hebrew repudiate the stated goals of the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Arab State in all of Palestine; to re-write the public educational texts and change the everyday television programs which villify Israel (That's no way to prepare a people for a two-state solution, is it?); to change the Friday afternoon sermons of hate into messages of reconciliation and cooperation. Couldn't you have asked Barack for even one of these?

I do hope that President Obama pressures Israel to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank, but I hope this is done in a context which also requires steps by the PLA, some of which, I have mentioned above......."


MY REPLY TO THE LETTER:
..............I’ll spend the rest of this letter commenting on the “political” portion of your letter.This may be overly long-winded, but please bear with me. I fully respect your objections to my letter to Obama and feel that they deserve total attention and an attempt at a response. Being your letter is packed with statements (I think you know how to shorten things better than I) I’ve tried here to comment on those that seemed most provocative to me. So here goes:

You wrote“I imagine you feel that if only the peoples could act, as opposed to the governments acting, we would be closer to a solution. But the reality, through my eyes, is that agreements between national entities are made by governments, not by individuals.”Let’s not mix up between two things: what an individual can and should do vis-à-vis what a government should do. For example: Minimizing “poverty” within a country can only be done by government goals, policies and budgets. Volunteer work at a soup-kitchen will not solve the problem of poverty. That’s not a reason not to volunteer or support the help given by the soup-kitchen. (certainly so in an atmosphere where government policies only widen the gap between poor and rich.) of course soup kitchens at their best will never replace the work needed to be done by a government.
How well I know that my own (and a few others) involvement – very low keyed and sparse – with the farmers in the West Bank will leave hardly an imprint on the policies of our governments. Here and there we are a thorn in the system (a very slight pain in the ass), but non-consequential policy-wise.

My involvement is a result of two situations. One: the tremendous de-facto policy support given by all of our governments over the past three decades (and more) to the expansion and legalization of settlements on conquered lands. Second: the support (mainly by silence and turning away heads) given by our army and government to the daily illegal and immoral acts of our “legalized” settlers and settlements upon their Palestinian neighbors.

You write: “I am dismayed that you, like so many others, call on (Barack to call on) Israel alone to do this or do that or to stop this and stop that…”Wrong. I call on Barack to help in one thing alone……..convincing us of the urgent need to stop expansion of settlements in the west bank and getting our settlers out of land which is not ours. Without this there is no way that any call to the Palestinians “to do this or do that or to stop this and stop that…” can have any avail. To date, each time we promise to at least “freeze” the settlements, we have allowed unperturbed expansion. So long as “freeze” equals “expansion” we are doing nothing to lessen the “The difficulty….in establishing the trust on both sides to enable each side to gamble on the very many steps that must be taken”.

“There is nothing that I know of (I am open to being enlightened) which suggests to me that the PLA is interested in a two state solution. I think that it has yet to unequivocally and publicly repudiate its stated goal of destroying Israel.”This month marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of a two state solution by the PLO and the public repudiation of the stated goal of destroying Israel……..which also led to the Oslo agreements. Ever since then even the Likud Governments and other right-wing parties have stopped asking for public repudiation (as you ask for in your letter). The public repudiation is now being asked of the Hamas in Gaza, not of the leadership in the West Bank. (I leave aside for now the varying levels of trust in public pronouncements.)

It is instructional and proper that all of your direct references to “that hostile government” which has a stated goal of the destruction of Israel, refer to actions by the Hamas government of Gaza (tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt, rockets on Sderot and Ashkelon, Gilad Shalit). Yet you try not to differentiate between the situation in the west bank and that in Gaza as far as having some type of leadership willing to talk with us on the basis of a two state solution. Of course just as in Gaza we aided in the destruction of those willing to talk with us, we are on the road to doing something similar in the West Bank by constantly promising to remove the most criminal of the illegal settlements, while doing hardly anything of the sort.

"(The separation of Gaza and the West Bank works very well for Abu Mazen, don't you think?)"
Yes, I do think so. It can also work very well for us. But as we did our best to undermine his infrastructure in Gaza, we are on the road to do so in the west bank as well. If we thus succeed, we can be sure to see a Hamas win in the west bank as well, and there probably is not much time left.

You ask that I “call on President Obama to call on the PLA….. to allow the IDF to leave the West Bank by fulfilling their responsibility to curtail terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure”.As mentioned earlier I didn’t call on Obama to influence the IDF to leave the West Bank. We can leave the West bank only when we have a fairly viable agreement for a two state solution. The occupation, in and of itself, is not an obstruction to an agreement. Phasing out the military occupation is the carrot we have to offer in any negotiation. And by the way…..yes, there is a lot of joint work done by the Palestinian police and the IDF in locating terrorists. At least this is what we’ve been shown on Israeli TV. Of course, if getting to an agreement turns out to be a dead-end street, tables will be turned, Hamas will take over the streets, and the third intifada will have begun. So far, our settlement policy is assuring a dead-end street. Ergo, my call regarding settlements.


“Why don't you also call on President Obama to call on the PLA ………to re-write the public educational texts and change the everyday television programs which villify Israel (That's no way to prepare a people for a two-state solution, is it?); to change the Friday afternoon sermons of hate into messages of reconciliation and cooperation. Couldn't you have asked Barack for even one of these?”, etc…..
I sense that out of your objection to what I did ask the President-elect you have over-reacted regarding things which were not included in my letter. Please understand, we have been asking for all those things constantly, and justifiably so, during every American mediation effort that has come our way, though we full well know that these will not change much until a successful mediation. My call to the President-elect was to add to our mediation wish-list also the one item which our government does not ask of the mediation: help us to help ourselves in getting our settlers out of land not theirs, because we are evidently unable (or unwilling) to do this on our own.


“I believe that if they had the power, the West Bank and Gazan Arabs would slaughter the Jews of Israel. I believe the only thing not allowing this is the power of Israel and the presence of the IDF in the West Bank and around Gaza.”
I agree with you so, so much. For that reason I thought it wrong of Sharon to vacate Tzahal from Gaza (along with so many other things Sharon was wrong on throughout his public life). Nor can we pull Tzahal out of the West Bank. My letter to Obama made no mention of anything of the sort.(read again perhaps). I have always seen the conquered territories as our hostages, with our ransom demand being a non-belligerent relationship with our Arab neighbors fortified by a variety of guarantees. I repeat - my call to the president-elect was to add to our mediation wish-list the one item which our government does not ask of the mediation: help us to help ourselves in getting our settlers out of land not theirs, because we are evidently unable (or unwilling) to do this on our own.

Please understand the damaging results of our settlement policy:

1. we are stealing lands belonging to private arab owners.

2. we have made our soldiers the guardians of people who have stolen lands, brutally harassed the original owners, and see their theft and the entire conquered lands as a permanent extension of the State of Israel.

3. With so much of our army deployed to protect our settlers, we have turned much of our training into that of a police force rather than training for the probable eventuality of some terrible wars that are still ahead of us. (Our Second Lebanon War was a good example of police training needing to cope with bringing a war into enemy territory. What a military disaster!)

4. Our soldiers are returning home having learned that you can shoot children throwing stones if they are Arab, but look away when settlers they are guarding have their children throw stones, or if settlers attack Arab farmers trying to work their fields. These are moral lessons brought back home after the army tour is over. They are wrong moral lessons, and they have spread and grown.

5. protecting our settlers, building them roads and other infrastructure, grants and favorable deals for moving to the conquered areas – all these have drained enormous funds from infrastructure, education, welfare and more within the State of Israel. (I can expand on the nose-dive each of these has taken, but some other time.)

6. So long as we have settlers and expanding settlements in the conquered lands, there is no way of holding these lands as ransom for better days when we can reach some kind of modus Vivendi for a two state solution living non-belligerently next to each other. The settlements are a constant living physical proof to the Palestinians that we have absolutely no intention of giving up the occupied lands in lieu of some type of agreement.

7. the continued expansion and natural growth of settlements in the West Bank will eventually be so heavy in population numbers so as to make it impossible to exit our settlers (many say that we have already passed the point of no return.) At that stage a two-state solution will no longer be an option. The only democratic option that will be left is to incorporate the West Bank into the State of Israel (the talk is already there – among arabs!). We will then hold the Palestinians in guarded enclaves or make them Israeli citizens (as we did on the Golan and in Eastern Jerusalem). With the second option, We can say goodby to a “Jewish State”. Being a Zionist, I prefer our country unilaterally pulling out our Jewish settlers from all occupied lands – now, before its too late.

I was always disturbed by stories coming out of the occupied lands regarding the behavior of our Jewish settlers towards the local Palestinians and the lax attitude of our army towards the actions of the settlers they are guarding. I assumed that part of the hype was also manufactured as some political tactic. I was wrong. These past few years I’ve taken the time to be among the olive groves of towns near Shchem. I’ve walked the streets and hills of Hevron and I’ve visited the sparse landscape of the cave dwellers south of Hevron. Being there and seeing convinced me that your justified request of the Palestinians “to change the Friday afternoon sermons of hate into messages of reconciliation and cooperation” must also be requested of the community of Jewish settlers that encourage their children to hate and harass their Arab neighbors while they themselves either commit or turn a blind eye to criminal acts committed towards their Arab neighbors. And don’t turn to me saying “yes, but that’s how the Arabs would act towards our Jews (and much worse) if we gave them the chance”. I yearn for our moral code to be different and so much higher and better than that which you may think is theirs.

I realize these words don’t answer all your objections, nor will I attempt to comment line by line, but please realize that my concern for the plight of the Palestinians is perhaps secondary. My main concern is what our settlement policy is doing to us as a people and where I fear it brings us to in the future.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Another Response to my "Letter to Obama"

Sent 13.Nov.2008
In response to reading the message I wrote to Obama on his website, a friend wrote me the following comments, and I thought it important to reply. I also thought you too may be interested in our correspondence.
So here it is:

To Aaron
(……………….)
You cannot begin to imagine how toxic the environment is in the Jewish community; anyone from Israel with your views would be booed off a speaker's platform here in San Francisco and elsewhere.

With rare exceptions, and mostly in private, it is impossible in the American Jewish community to express sentiments one used to be able to find on a daily basis in Ha'aretz. The experience following the pullout from Gaza has, unfortunately, provided an extremely strong argument against the efficacy of reaching any kind of accommodation with the Palestinians, one that is not easily refuted. And so, if you have any time, or the inclination, I'd be interested in your response to those who say that the lesson of Gaza is not to yield an inch. My own inadequate response is that increasing the frustrations of an entire people is what got us to this juncture and that pursuit of an expansionist agenda can only lead to disaster.
My attempt at a response:

Hello ------,
Thanks for your comments on the message to Obama and your appraisals of sentiments in our American Jewish community. Yes, I am also aware of the simplistic backlash as a result of the Gaza pullout. A response to that backlash is not simple. Just as destroying something is simpler and quicker than building something. A response to the simplistic backlash needs listeners with patience to listen. We seldom find them.

What you call your “inadequate response” seems to be fairly adequate, but I understand your frustration. I too am frustrated by the fact that we can’t convince our people that what is happening is not right, not good, not moral, and not helping us in the long run. We live in a complex world both macro and micro. We are on the front line of a conflict between Western and Moslem civilizations. We are also a people grappling between an older opportunistic and humanistic Zionism and a newer neo-Zionizm drenched in messianic and jingoistic aspirations. We also have very real enemies (in both macro and micro) who would enjoy seeing us disappear from the Middle East.

Obviously none of us has all the answers and a good bit of where we stand on the issues depends on the chemical composition of our conscience. That’s probably the best we can ever do. Nevertheless, I think there are some conclusions which may help influence (sometimes) the thinking of others.

First some comments on Gaza:
1. The Israeli Left (see: Yosi Beilin) did its best to warn that leaving Gaza unilaterally without coming to an agreement with the Palestinian Authority is a mistake. Unfortunately, no attempt was made by the Sharon Government to reach an agreement. Nevertheless, as Beilin said begrudgingly, Leaving is better than staying.
2. Prior to the withdrawal from Gaza, our Government did its “awful best” to weaken the Fatah led Palestinian Authority, both before and after Arafat’s death. We succeeded immensely, and brought on the Hamas domination of Gaza (and its influential inroads into the West Bank as well).
3. The main obstruction to an agreement with the Palestinians is not the occupation itself. The military occupation (fazing it out) is the carrot we would be able to offer in any negotiation. The main obstructions are the settlements, both illegal and pseudo-legal. Their existence and expansion deny us the ability to use the military occupation (fazing it out) as a carrot.
4. In leaving Gaza we pulled out settlements and military supervision both at the same time. (and, of course, after having done an excellent job of weakening the Fatah led Palestinian Authority.) We did not leave the military in place as a negotiating carrot for a (probably gradual) withdrawal.

But the sins of occupation and the crimes of settlements are much more complex, and their effect on the profile of Israeli society runs much deeper than the localized question of Gaza.

We are a nation of soldiers, and our young soldiers return home marred and scarred from their few years in the army. In our army they learn that they are not there simply for the important task of protecting our country, as was (mainly) the task of soldiers who prepared and fought in ’56 and ’67 and ‘73. Today they learn that they are also in the army to protect settlers and settlements that are grabbing lands from an occupied people, and its O.K. ; Today they learn that in order to patrol an occupied people you also need to degrade and debase and humiliate them, and its O.K. too ; today they learn that shooting at children throwing stones is O.K. if they are Arab, not O.K. if they are Jewish, and that too is O.K. ; Today they learn things we once considered immoral and deeds we remember as criminal and this too is O.K.; after 2 or 3 or more years in the army, our young soldiers bring home a set of norms that set the background for the profile of the new Israel; and this has been going on with ever increasing inertia for a number of decades; and this too is O.K. ??

Our soldiers have spent most of their time during the past 40 years learning to police the occupied territories by forcefully controlling the Palestinian populace while heavily protecting the settlers and settlements. The occupation mixed with land-grabbing settlers have turned our army from soldiers to policemen (including Swat Teams and all). From high ranking officers down to the lowly private we have trained a successful police force. But police forces don’t fight wars and are ill trained to bring a battle into foreign enemy territory. We proved this with the operation and results of the Second Lebanese War in 2006. The future holds for us the danger of wars that threaten our existence infinitely more than a hostile Palestinian entity. For that eventuality we need an army of all soldiers trained for 21st century wars, not an efficient police force trained mainly to subdue and control Palestinians while protecting settlers and their settlements. In the long run, the policy of occupation and settlement remains the greatest threat to our future existence.

In 1967, after 6 days of war, I was exhilarated at the outcome. We won. The Western Wall was ours. Sinai and the West Bank were in our hands. I wondered how long it would be before we’d be able to negotiate a “peace for territories” agreement with our enemy neighbors. I hoped for “soon” but knew that it may also be a long time. We had two choices. Either graciously return conquered lands immediately (as we did in ’56) with the hope that our “generosity” would bring our enemies to decide on a peaceful modus-vivendi with us, or else we would hold on to the conquered territories as hostages in return for eventual peace agreements. I never foresaw the third alternative: holding on to the conquered territories with the desire of keeping them and expanding national boundaries.
When the first settlers landed in the West Bank I saw it as a criminal act that when compounded will bring on the demise of a democratic Jewish homeland. Forty years later, alongside so many Israeli and Palestinian corpses, I find a general apathy to the changed norms that have overtaken and rooted all around us. The plight of a subdued people is taken for granted as are traffic accidents. But also our own streets are more violent, our indifference to others misfortune is greater, we are no longer a united people pulling in fairly similar directions, and so many have no directions at all. No, not everything because of the occupation and settlements, but so much time and energy and money are expended on holding on to the territories and settlements that so much less is left for the tasks of molding a nation that is a “light unto the nations”.

O.K., I think I’ve begun to digress into our wider Israeli scenario, and anyways I doubt there will be many willing to listen to this much. Also, I know that all I’ve written has counter arguments that are delivered forcefully and convincingly. As I said earlier, a good bit of where we stand on the issues depends on the chemical composition of our conscience. That’s probably the best we can ever do.

My best wishes,
aaron

Monday, November 10, 2008

Letter to Obama

sent 10.Nov.2008
Dear Friends,
Like so many others, I've not yet gotten over the exhilaration of seeing Obama elected President. As an Israeli I also have special hopes regarding a changed American approach to our local conflict. As you may know Obama has a web sight where we can communicate our thoughts and hopes for an American "Change". I sent Obama a message thru this web site, and though I know that some of my friends would disagree with my message, I thought it would be well to share with you the things I wrote.
So here it is:


To our President-elect, Barack Obama
Re: your involvement with us in Israel

I was stunned by your election to the Presidency, and I thank whatever circumstances enabled your election aside from your truly wonderful attributes which make you what you are. I did not think those attributes of excellence would be enough to place you in the driver’s seat…..not in the America I knew.
But you are there……a combination of all that is YOU and circumstances not envisioned when you started on the road to the presidency.

I am a citizen of both the USA and of Israel. I am Jewish. I live in a kibbutz close to the Lebanese border. I am an ardent Zionist and believe in Israel as our Jewish Homeland. My fervent Zionist desire for a democratic Jewish Homeland is the basis for my belief that only a true two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians can satisfy the desires and the future of our two peoples in the most just and democratic spirit.

A two state solution will never develop as long as we Israelis continue to settle and expand our settlements in the territories we conquered after being unilaterally attacked in the war of 1967. As long as we continue civilian settlement in occupied territory, as long as we continue to find legal and security excuses for shameful land-grabbing, we shall never arrive at a two state solution acceptable (even grudgingly) to both sides.

American Presidents in the past, and certainly during these past few decades, have given sound support to Israel in its stand within a hostile Arab world in the Middle East. But the American bear-hug has also allowed us to say we are truly looking for a two-state solution while blatantly continuing our settlement policy in Palestinian lands. This is a policy that will eventually destroy the democratic moral fiber of our country, and perhaps also lead to the physical melt-down of our Jewish democratic homeland.

If you are truly a friend of Israel as a democratic Jewish homeland, which I believe you are, please don’t continue the overdone bear-hug. Please be a true friend, one who takes us to task for those acts that are counterproductive to both our physical future and to our moral standing as a democratic Jewish homeland. I know that we here in Israel will make the final policy decisions. But our decisions have always taken into account the American bear-hug which has generally looked away from our failings in the occupied territories. Be a true friend. Stop looking away. If we need a detox period, help us bring it on.

I know….helping us as I ask may get you into hot water with many other American Jews who will paint you as an enemy of Israel. But this is not an election year anymore, and you have an eight year surge, and most of your contributions came via the web. Give us the proper guarantees while going thru detox. After we get to a two-state solution, my fellow American Jews will come around. But most of all, you will have done the right thing……..for us Israelis and for the Palestinians. It will not solve the conflicts in the Middle East, but it will alleviate some tensions enough to allow better dialogue between the United States and the Arab world. This is good for America. This is good for the world. This is good for us.

I am well aware that you have so many other issues to resolve in the immediate future. Our conflict will not top your list on the 21st of January. But remember us in February, because without your help, settlements will continue to grow and expand in the Palestinian occupied lands and our conflict will continue seeding a full blown conflagration that will also land at your doorstep.

Along with my sincere respect and admiration for you, I wish you the strength and stamina and wisdom that we so expect from you as the President of the United States.

Respectfully,
Aaron Sharif
Kibbutz Gesher Haziv, Israel