[Peace-political] Letter to The Octpus

[Al Kagan]

I have just sent this to The Octopus.

310 W. Hill St., #1E
  Champaign, IL 61820
September 15, 2001


To the Editor:

Many people say it is too soon to talk of politics, that we need time 
to grieve and vent our emotions.  But I also need to vent my 
emotions, precisely by addressing the political issues.  Some say 
these were cowardly acts, but these horrible crimes were committed by 
people prepared to die for their cause. As intelligent people, we 
must be prepared to investigate why people would commit suicide to 
advance their aims.  We have seen a call for unity, but unity for 
what?  We all hurt, but that does not mean we should stop thinking 
and mindlessly rally around whatever actions President Bush might 
take.  And if we wait to start thinking, it will already be too late 
to try to effect our Government's initial response.  I am very 
worried that American bombs will kill many innocent people in other 
countries even before this letter gets published.  I am concerned 
that our civil liberties may be eroded in the name of increased 
security with no practical benefits.  And we are already seeing 
attacks on innocent Muslim people here in the United States.

I want to relate my personal experience. In August 2000, just over a 
year ago, I participated in an international library meeting in 
Jerusalem.  It was a quiet time, just before the latest deadline for 
signing an Israel--Palestine peace treaty.  I was staying in a 
beautiful small Palestinian hotel in East Jerusalem just outside the 
walls of the Old City.  There was a marvelous international Arab 
music festival going on over a period of weeks, and the hotel owners 
were involved in the festival.  After the nightly concerts, the 
musicians would come back to the hotel for long and spirited dinners. 
But everyone there knew that there was a terrible cloud hanging over 
their lives.  It was clear that there would be no peace agreement. 
The debate was on whether or not the PLO would declare a Palestinian 
state after the September deadline.  The pros and cons were discussed 
but never resolved.  The people of East Jerusalem expected more 
violence. Some talked of the possibility of a new full-scale war.

The hotel was affiliated with a small unique Palestinian tour company 
that took tourists to various places in the West Bank and Gaza.  I 
came a few days early and went on tours to Jericho and Gaza.  The 
Gaza trip has left an indelible impression in my brain.  The tour van 
left us off at the VIP border crossing. They were not allowed to 
drive through.  We were instructed to get our permits, walk through, 
and look for another tour van on the other side.  As we went through 
the formalities, we saw the normal border crossing a short distance 
away where long lines of people, many with heavy loads, waited hours 
to cross to go to their jobs on the other side.  The Israeli military 
gave us nasty looks, but stamped our papers quickly.  We found the 
van and on the other side and drove off.  I will never forget our 
tour of one of the many refugee camps there.  People are packed into 
very tight spaces; whole families share small rooms.  The streets are 
much too small for cars, in some cases just the width of a single 
person.  Many people still have their keys for the homes that they 
had to flee in 1948.  They were still thinking that they might be 
able to go back someday if only there could be a peace treaty.  But 
only a token number of returns were ever even discussed in the 
negotiations.

Back in West Jerusalem, the international meeting was a disaster. 
The Israeli Organizing Committee had excluded all Palestinians, and 
opened the meeting with Zionist political rhetoric. The Palestinians 
and other Arab delegations boycotted the meeting and held an 
alternative meeting in Cairo.  Even at a library meeting, it was 
clear that the peace process was dead.  I came away fearing the worst 
but I did not think about how the Middle East war might come home to 
the US.  I, like most Americans, am just not used to thinking in 
these terms.  But we should have seen it coming. The Israel and 
Palestine conflict provides the context for everything else in the 
Middle East.  Whether the current atrocities are directly or 
indirectly related is a minor point.  The whole region is inflamed 
when the war heats up in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

But criticizing Israel and US policy towards the Middle East is a 
taboo in the United States.  I know this from hard experience.  I had 
great reservations about writing this letter and opening myself up to 
more harsh criticism. Nevertheless, we can't hide our heads in the 
sand forever.  People need to speak out.  It is no secret that the US 
gives Israel billions of dollars every year and supplies the most 
advanced weapons.  Amnesty International and many others have 
documented that Israel uses these US weapons to collectively punish 
the Palestinian people by destroying infrastructure, bulldozing homes 
and restricting travel to jobs. The Israeli Government does not hide 
the fact that it engages in torture and in assassinations of leaders. 
The widening cycle of violence results in more and more dead and 
wounded.  But the Israeli Government will have no incentive to 
negotiate as long as the US backs it in the full measure of its 
brutality.

The current Israeli Government has dramatically increased the level 
of violence as a matter of policy.  But Israel and the United States 
will never win the Middle East war through military means. There can 
be no technical solution.  The war has come to the US now.  It is 
time to face the music and see the failure of US foreign policy. 
Terrorism is a result of despair.  More military actions will only 
create more despair and therefore more terrorism.  But there is a way 
to address terrorism.  The solution is actually very simple. We need 
to demand that those billions of US tax dollars go to create justice. 
For a start, the US can become a member of the International Criminal 
Court and use judicial means to solve terrorist crimes. A long-term 
solution can only be achieved through a thorough reexamination of US 
military and foreign policy.

Al Kagan
-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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