KK-.Forum,
fra Tanya Reinhart
Knut Rognes
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X-Sent: 30 Mar 2001 05:52:27 GMT
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From: MER <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
To: "MER" <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 04:53:00 +0000
Subject: An Israeli Offers Hope Amidst The Darkness
Reply-To: MER@MiddleEast.Org
Organization: MiD-EasT RealitieS
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"The tragedy of the Palestinian people is that
its official leadership is still the same
corrupt and power-driven leadership that has
cooperated with the occupation during the Oslo
years."
"'It will be necessary to find some place for
resettlement outside the State of Israel (perhaps
to the east of the Jordan) for the Palestinian
population of the territories'".
RIGHT FOR BOTH PEOPLES
Tanya Reinhart*
[Yediot Aharonot - 27 March - translated from the original Hebrew]:
In the past two weeks, we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase:
Israelis
and Palestinians are extending a hesitant hand to each other, across the
IDF's
barricades and checkpoints.
It happens simultaneously on both sides. On the Palestinian side, more voices
were heard of those calling for months already to return to a popular and
civil
uprising, like in the previous Intifada, when no weapons were used.
International law and norms acknowledge the right of an occupied people to an
armed struggle against the occupying army (unlike terror against civilians).
But this does not mean that this way can always lead to
a true solution. Under the present circumstances, of such unequal forces, the
use of arms verges on suicide.
The easy way to exterminate a weak nation has always been dragging it into a
hopeless war. A whole generation of Palestinian youth is dying out in a
desperate
confrontation with the prison walls, while most of the Palestinian society -
women, students and ordinary civilians - are drawn out of the struggle and
all
they can do is wait
in their besieged home to the next IDF collective punishment, or to
deportation.
Senior IDF-officers are admitting now openly that they have never believed in
a compromise with the Palestinians, and that 'force is the only way'. The
Palestinian
use of arms gives the Western media and public opinion the excuse to look
aside
while the IDF is carrying out a slow extermination of the Palestinian people
and identity.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people is that its official leadership is
still
the same corrupt and power-driven leadership that has cooperated with the
occupation
during the Oslo years. But in the months of the Intifada, the Palestinian
identity
is reshaping.
Han Yunis, isolated between the fences of Gaza prison, has thus been freed
also
of the control of the Palestinian Authority and started to form popular
committees
that lead the communal struggle, like in the previous Intifada.
Now Ramallah awakens and prepares itself to a popular democratic uprising and
civil disobedience. At the same time, the voice of Bir Zeit University and
many
others is heard, calling to strive for cooperation with the Israeli opponents
of the occupation, like in the previous Intifada.
From the Palestinian Diaspora, Edward Said phrased the clear spirit of this
message
in an article of two weeks ago. He quotes Mandella's words: The struggle of
the
Blacks in South Africa could attract the imagination and dreams of the entire
world, because it offered the whole society - even the Whites who apparently
benefited from the Apartheid - the only way that enables the preservation of
basic human values. The Palestinian struggle, says Said, must be based on the
understanding that the Jewish people is here to stay. The struggle must
strive
towards a settlement that will enable coexistence based on human dignity, a
settlement
that will capture the imagination of the world.
On the Israeli side, 140 academics have published on the 20th of March an ad
in three Palestinian newspapers. "We extend our arms to you in solidarity
with
your just cause" they open, and express their wish "to cooperate with you in
opposing the IDF's brutal policy of siege, closure and curfews". In the
spirit
of Mandella and Said, they too believe that this cooperation "may serve as a
precedent-setting example for future relations between the two communities in
this country, our shared country".
And on the ground - new pictures. A group of Israeli demonstrators joined a
civil
demonstration in Ramallah last Saturday. Last Friday in the village of Rantis
near Tul Karem, I watched, bewildered, about 200 Israelis - youth along with
old veterans - demolishing with their bare hands the stone-and-ground battery
erected by the IDF. They know that as soon as they leave the liberated road,
IDF bulldozers will reconstruct the barricade. Still, they look happy.
Because
they know that they too will be there again.
They know that they will be there for the only future worth living - a future
based on basic human values. Because the choice gets clearer every day.
What was until a short while ago the lunatic right-wing of the Rehavam Zeevi
school, is now becoming the political center. 'Ha'aretz' of March 23 reports
a conference of about 300 "prominent personalities from the core of Israel's
political and defense establishment" - the center of the center. The
conclusions
of the forum were solemnly presented to the president of Israel, and what
they
suggest there is the transfer-solution: "It will be necessary to find some
place
for resettlement outside the State of Israel (perhaps to the east of the
Jordan)
for the Palestinian population of the territories".
Israeli Arabs would be deprived of their citizenship by "transferring them to
Palestinian sovereignty." The state's resources should be invested in
"fostering
quality" that is, in the "strong population", and not in the "non-Zionist
population",
which includes "Arabs, ultra-orthodox Jews and foreign workers", whose
natural
increase is a source of concern.
This is the other way, and it is not far away. The USA has approved of
Israel's
plans, Europe and the Arab League will look the other way. No international
protection
for the Palestinians will happen of its own. The eyes of the world can be
opened
and its imagination excited only by the people of the two nations - like in
South
Africa.
=============* Tanya Reinhart is Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University.
She can be reached at Tanya@MiddleEast.Org
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