What's happening 2

Last week I, along with some of my interested friends, were surprised to see a prominent article in the NY Times regarding illegal (under Israeli law) confiscation of Palestinian lands for settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. It is not normal to see this type of frank discussion of the issues in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the American media. This week the release of Former President Jimmy Carter’s new book “Palestine – Peace not Apartheid” has also provoked a surprisingly open debate on the nature of the conflict. Clearly his intentional use of the “A” word and his high profile status have contributed to the discussion. As he points out this kind of open debate is common in Israel and Europe, but is almost non existent in the US and it was his intention to be provocative in order to encourage discussion. Some major media outlets, namely the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, have managed to miss the story, but other major outlets have picked up on it and a lively debate has ensued. National Public Radio, ABC’s Good Morning America and Public Broadcasting’s News Hour interviewed President Carter. (To see the PBS interview click here) The Atlanta Journal Constitution published a lengthy op-ed piece by John Dugard and predictably Harvard professor Alan Dershewitz weighed in on right wing website Front Page Magazine. Mr. Dugard points out that President Carter walks very softly in his comparisons of the Israel/Palestinian situation to South Africa’s apartheid system. Even so it didn’t take long for Democratic Party leaders like Nancy Pelosi to disavow that she even knew this guy Jimmy Carter. It is much easier for politicians to take on the Jewish/Israeli lobby after they have retired. Republican Congressman Henry Hyde did not get around to writing President Bush about the treatment of Palestinian Christians until after he had decided to retire. Although I have been critical of the actions and inactions of the Bush administration in the Middle East, you can see from the following quotes assembled by Churches for Middle East Peace they have been pretty forceful in criticizing Israeli behavior in the occupied territories.

President George W. Bush
“As I have stated in the past, achieving peace demands action from all parties. Israel must continue to work with Palestinian leaders to help improve the daily lives of Palestinians. At the same time, Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its road map obligations, or prejudices the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized posts and stop settlement expansion. It also means that the barrier now being built to protect Israelis from terrorist attacks must be a security barrier, rather than a political barrier. Israeli leaders must take into account the impact this security barrier has on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities.” October 20, 2005, Press Conference with President Abbas

“Israel must continue to take steps toward a peaceful future, and work with the Palestinian leadership to improve the daily lives of Palestinians, especially their humanitarian situation. Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes road map obligations or prejudice final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem. Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to." May 26, 2005 Press conference with President Abbas

Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
“We have been very clear about the Israeli obligations under the Roadmap not to try and do anything that will prejudge a final status outcome. We’ve expressed our deep concern about the route of the wall particularly around Jerusalem and we have expressed the American policy on settlement activity remains that it should stop. We will continue to work towards exactly that.” July 23, 2005,
Press Conference with President Abbas

“I traveled to Ramallah and I saw your [settlement] construction with my own eyes. It is not possible to operate in the territories in a manner that will change the situation before discussions on final status. True, the president promised the prime minister to consider the realities on the ground and concentrations of population--this is very important and the United States stands behind this commitment. But the president added that it is clear to all sides that the final borders will be determined only through negotiation. We cannot sanction creating a new reality on the ground by actions that continue today. I mean by this those activities in Jerusalem and its environs meant to change the reality on the ground. I saw these things with my own eyes and I am very concerned. “We want very much to support Israel in this critical period, and we recognize the sensitivity of the situation, but it is impossible to sanction the continuation of construction and its influence on the final border. This is very important to us. I traveled close to Ma’ale Adumim, and I saw the construction along the way.” Conversation with Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom, as reported in Ma’ariv, June 26, 2005

“Now, our position on settlement activity has not changed. We have said to the Israelis that they have obligations under the roadmap, they have obligations not to increase settlement activity. We expect, in particular, that they are going to be careful about anything -- route of the fence, settlement activity, laws -- that would appear to prejudge a final status agreement, and it's concerning that this is where it is and around Jerusalem. But we've noted our concern to the Israelis -- and David Welch and Elliott did. We will continue to note that this is at odds with the -- of American policy. So full stop we will continue to do that and we have noted our concerns about it.” March 24, 2005 Interview with LA Times

The key here is that we have ahead of us a Roadmap; we have ahead of us a way toward the vision of two states living side by side. We have been very clear that we would expect our friends in Israel to do nothing that would somehow prejudge the outcome of a final status agreement in terms of territory, that this is something that really must be negotiated with the Palestinians. February 6, 2005 Interview With Udi Segal of Israel TV Channel 2

The problem has been that words have not translated into action. President Bush has always said that he is a man of action. Maybe the more open debate that seems to be happening will prompt some action. Let’s hope so.

Israel
Palestine

What's happening?

I was amazed yesterday to read in the NY Times an article on an Israeli government report that was leaked to the Israeli peace advocacy group “Peace Now”. The report documents that 40% of the Israeli settlements on the West Bank are built on Palestinian owned land that was confiscated from its owners. The amazing news wasn’t the contents of the report, (anyone who has spent time talking to Palestinians could tell you that) nor that it was published in the Israeli press. The amazing news was that it made the front page of the NY Times. (Click here to see the entire article) This may put a monkey wrench in the Israeli plans to retain these settlements even after the formation of a Palestinian state.

Birth Pangs

During the Israeli-Lebanese war this summer Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice famously (or infamously) described the war as the “birth pangs of the new Middle East”. It is hard to understand how an event that killed over 1000 Lebanese and Israelis and only succeeded in strengthening the position of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran can be written off in this flippant statement. However, if we want to see “birth pangs of a new Middle East” a war with Iran will get that done. The Lebanese/Israeli war would be mild labor pains compared to the pain of a war with Iran. In addition to massive casualties, it is easy to envision $100 per barrel oil, $4.00 per gallon gasoline, a regional Middle East conflict and a worldwide recession or depression out of such a conflict. It appears, however, that such a conflict is still on the radar screen. An upcoming article in the New Yorker magazine describes debate among U.S. and Israeli government leaders of all political persuasions on how to justify such a war. (To see the complete article click here) In a recent Jordan Times op-ed piece, James Zogby, an Arab American businessman, discussed a conference held by the U.S. State Department with State Department and Arab American leaders. (To see the complete article click here) This conference was the first of its kind under the current administration. They were periodically held in this format under the Clinton administration, but the Bush administration changed them to Middle East conferences and only invited their friends. The purpose of the conference was to facilitate dialogue (some of it was heated) on U. S. Middle East policy and to encourage citizen diplomacy by Arab Americans to explain and sell U.S. policy in the Arab world. The overwhelming response that the State Department got was – you’ve got the cart way before the horse. First you have to have a policy that makes any sense at all to the Arab world before you have any chance of explaining and selling it. I don’t think that a policy of “preemptive attack” on Iran is one that I would want to try and sell.

Beit Hanoun

I have been struggling to find away to make sense of the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians from the same family in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces. After coming up with no answers, I decided to let my Palestinian friends in the West Bank and Gaza speak for themselves. Here is an email that I received last week.





Usama writes:
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Bethlehem. I hope you are well in these days. Here in Bethlehem we are excited to see the weather changing as we begin to make preparations for an exciting winter.Please absorb this poignant email written by a friend of ours who is working in Gaza City. I watched the news from Gaza in my neighbor's house last evening and we saw Ali on the television. It doesn't matter what your politics or religion may be. There is no justification for any of this. Children are being killed every day. When will it be enough?I was struck by the image of the candle. Could you respond in one simple way to this email? Could you, at some point today, light a candle in your own home and say a prayer for all of those who are sitting in the dark silence mourning? Peace to you,
Usama
This is Beit Hanoun
by Philip Rizk
From the main road the town of Beit Hanoun looks like any other part of Gaza. Cars are driving in and out, although most of them are leaving, going far, far away, but where, I don’t know. There are only 365 km2 to this place called the Gaza Strip and over the past week 80 human beings have been killed in Beit Hanoun.
I entered the town from a back road since the main road was torn up by bulldozers and is inaccessible. At first things seems rather normal, just another bumpy road, one of many in Gaza, but then through the darkness you see, something else. Many homes remain only skeletons with gaping holes staring through walls, streets turned into mud piles, lamp posts are broken like match sticks, the whole place is covered in a semi darkness, there is no electricity in Beit Hanoun. In the midst of all the chaos an electrician is up one of the electricity poles trying to fix something. The stench of sewage fills the air, the Israeli tanks and bulldozers also broke many sewage pipes.
I got to the two homes that had been shelled that morning after the Israeli troops had pulled out of Beit Hanoun. There was an eerie silence in the area. It was dark and quiet. The first home I entered was lit up by a candle, sitting on a counter. Behind it you could see what was once a well kept kitchen, the windows looked expensive, but the huge hole in the wall and the rubble covering the floor let any visitor know something was not right here. I met Ali there. He lost relatives and neighbors. 17 people in total, 13 of them from one family. Ali’s eyes were swollen, I could see the grief in his face, his spirit was broken. A tank shell had gone through the roof of the building he lived in. He escaped unscathed, others were not so fortunate. "Life and death are the same", Ali exclaimed. He explained to me how just days before the Israeli soldiers had occupied the very home which had been shelled that morning. They had been tired and had slept in the beds of the Palestinians who that day were killed in the very same beds. One couple was found dead, lying in their bed, with their young child sleeping in between them. The attack happened at 5:30am. Ali was among the people that fled the scene and fire followed them, to the next building where they tried to take refuge. "What religion allows this?" Why? was the question he kept asking, and the question that goes through my mind still.
Why are we silent?

Mathew Price, the BBC correspondent in Israel/Palestine wrote a moving piece about this tragedy in which he talks about his driver in Gaza:
“How many of your family have you lost, I asked? "All of them. They all had the same grandfather."
"I feel hate," he added. He did not spit it out like people so often do. He just said it. "I hate George W Bush. I hate Israel of course. I hate the Arab world. I hate Europe." His eyes, though, did not say hate. They said pain.” (To see the whole article click here)

Israel
Palestine

Thinking about immigration

A few weeks ago our small mountain town held what is becoming one of our most popular festivals – “The Trailing of the Sheep”. The festival celebrates the sheep industry in Idaho and its contributions to our state’s history. It also celebrates the contributions that have been made by various ethnic groups who have immigrated to Idaho as part of the sheep industry and have grown to become part of the cultural fabric of the state. This year the focus was on the Basque community from Spain and France. As I listened to a number of first generation Basque immigrants talk about arriving in the U.S. forty years ago unable to speak English and with tears in their eyes praise the ranchers and others in the western U.S. who gave them their first chance, I wondered whether or not today’s immigrants feel as welcome as those of the recent past. When I commented about this to some of my friends they responded “at least they could speak English”. Trouble is – forty years ago they didn’t “speak English”. Today they are successful investment managers, ranchers, restaurant owners, etc. Our community would be a poorer place without their presence. As we struggle to formulate a immigration policy that makes sense in today’s connected world, perhaps we should be thinking “outside the box”. A recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine Immigration Nation by Tamar Jacoby talks about immigration in terms of supply and demand. He argues that the demand for immigrant workers in the U.S. workforce is 1.5mm per year and that this demand is going to be filled by foreign workers with or without legal status. Any effort by the government to repeal the law of supply and demand absent police state tactics of border control, check points, random raids, and mass incarceration is doomed to fail. (Our government does seem to make periodic efforts to repeal the law of supply and demand without much success – witness prohibition) Some have called for the deportation of all immigrants in this country without legal status. The generally accepted number of these undocumented workers is 12 million. By my calculation this would require 250,000 bus loads to get them back to our borders. It would create a heck of a traffic jam at the border. (There might be an investment opportunity in bus companies.) The most recent U.S unemployment number is 6.7mm people. Assuming that all of the unemployed would fill these jobs if we deported all undocumented workers (a highly suspect assumption), we would still be short 5mm workers. The only solution for companies would be to move the jobs to where the people are instead of moving the people to the jobs in the U.S. It seems to me that any successful immigration policy must allow 1.5mm immigrant workers to come to the U.S. each year to fill the demand. If the guest worker program currently being debated does not allow for filling the demand, illegal immigration will continue. Once the demand is filled the immigration supply will dwindle. People won’t come here to be unemployed. If you are going to be unemployed, you might as well stay home and be unemployed. This debate really never got off the ground in the last Congress; perhaps the recent changes of this week’s election will make a difference.

Immigration