Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 27)
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- Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 27)
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that time, our intelligence people failed
to understand what was going on in
Cairo and in Damascus. This time, they
didn’t read the situation in our own
backyard.» Schiff noted the future
security implications of failure to find a
political solution: «If a war breaks out
in the future, we will have to keep more
forces in the territories to safeguard the
settlements, the roads and our military
supply depots... And unless we move
fast and vigorously to satisfy the
demands for equality by the 700,000
Israeli Arabs, we will have an enemy in
our very midst. Our security position
could become precarious.»
NEW GROUPS
Under the impact of the uprising, a
number of new groups have emerged in
opposition to Israeli government policy
vis-a-vis the occupied territories:
- Israelis by Choice was formed by a
group of old and recent immigrants
who consider that the repression exer-
cised by the Israeli army is a betrayal of
the ideals which prompted them to
come to ‘Israel’. This group issued a
leaflet saying: «We chose to be Israelis,
and therefore we are struggling against
the occupation.» They demand a
political solution via immediate
negotiations with the Palestinians.
- Bridge for Peace was also formed in
opposition to official policy and has
organized a campaign of blood dona-
tions to West Bank and Gaza hospitals.
- The National Circle was formed on
January 13th, demanding a political
solution for the West Bank and Gaza
Strip in view of «the demographic
threat and the potential threat of Israel
becoming a binational state.»
- People with Conscience was formed
the same day by Arab Jews who sent a
food convoy to the besieged Gaza Strip,
and began a hunger strike to last until
the trucks entered the Strip.
- Red Line - Jews and Arabs Against
Occupation was eStablished on
February 13th, to unify Israeli and
(Palestinian) Arab protest and reach
out to public opinion in order to end the
occupation. The founding convention,
held at a settlement in the Galilee,
planned peace marches and a petition
campaign.
- Year 21 was established in Jerusalem
by residents who will not serve in the
Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip; 1,000 people, including promi-
nent Israeli professionals, have signed
the Year 21 petition, condemning the
occupation and calling for a boycott of
Israeli products manufactured in the
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. Year 21 members assert that 21
years of occupation have created a new
mentality and behavior among Israelis.
MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF
OCCUPATION
The moral and material costs of
maintaining Zionist security in the face
of all-out Palestinian revolt raised new
questions as to the very future of
‘Israel’. Several factors contributed to
this, not least of which was that
Palestinians who have lived under
Zionist occupation since 1948, joined in
the uprising. Such questions, actually
raised by the first Day of the Land in
1976, posed themselves with new
weight. Israelis may have become
somewhat accustomed to displays of
Palestinian nationalism in Nazareth
and Um AI Fahem, sites of high
Palestinian concentration. This time
they were shocked when the small
Palestinian communities left in Acca,
Lydda and Jafra, now considered
Israeli cities of mixed population, also
staged mass demonstrations.
Another factor contributing to Israeli
uncertainty is the specter of interna-
tional isolation presented by disillu-
sionment with ‘Israel’ and its sup-
posedly democratic character among
the US public and American Jewish
community. Such concern was evident
at the mid-February protest in Tel Aviv
by Israeli intellectuals, where
playwright Danny Horowitz read aloud
a foreign newsclip describing how
Israeli soldiers had tied Palestinian
boys on the hood of their jeep to ward
off stone-throwing.
In an unprecedented public display
of criticism, Rabbi Schindler, leader of
the Union of American Hebrew Con-
gregations, called on Israeli Defense
Minister Rabin to stop the beating
policy (Los Angeles Times, January
25th). In the same week, the American
Jewish Committee and the American
Jewish Congress protested the Israeli
army’s use of force. In March, Michael
Lerner, pro-Israeli editorial writer for
the Jewish magazine, Tikkun, wrote
that the uprising has «precipitated the
greatest crisis facing the American
Jewish community since the
Holocaust.» The director of the Middle
East section of the American Jewish
Committee, Dr. George Gruen, stated
that American Jews are overcome by
«feelings of anguish» not only for
Palestinians but for Israeli soldiers as
well (The Guardian, March 15th). This
last statement illustrates that much of
this type of critique is based on the idea
of saving ‘Israel’ from itself.
The flurry of criticism and dissent
elicited by the Zionist state’s brutality
against Palestinian civilians has not,
however, crystallized into clear, new
alternatives. The platforms put forward
by the new Israeli groups, like that of
the largest movement, Peace Now, do
show that a broad sector of Israeli
society opposes occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, and longs for a
political solution. However, the reasons
for this position are varied, and the
solutions proposed by these groups
generally fail to address the fundamen-
tal causes of the problem, i.e., the
nature of Zionism and ‘Israel’ on the
one hand, and the totality of the
Palestinian cause on the other. Despite
the new movements, the genuinely
democratic Israeli forces remain small
and isolated, though the current upris-
ing certainly gives them opportunities
for growth. The Israeli forces of in-
fluence who do propose an alternative
to Israeli government policy, such as
Rakah (the Israeli Communist Party),
are highly dependent on support from
Palestinian Arabs living in the Zionist
State.
In the overall picture, the sector of
Israeli society that yearns for peace
may be overwhelmed by the opposite
move to the right, a common tendency
in reactionary states whose underpinn-
ings are being challenged. There are
signs of the electorate moving to the
extreme rightist fringe, along with the
increasing participation of settlers in
the army’s repression against Palesti-
nians. Prolongation of the uprising will
undoubtedly lead to a clearer
crystallization of the contradictory
tendencies in the Israeli society, allow-
ing for more precise analysis in the
future. )
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