[Peace-discuss] An Open Letter to DI: Request for Signatures, Please Forward

[Green, David]

Dear friends:

 

I would like to begin the process of collecting signatures (and later money)
from local Jews in order to publish this letter in the Daily Illini by the
end of next week if feasible. Suggestions for revision are welcomed. Please
circulate widely among interested parties.

 

Best regards,

 

David Green

 

 

AN OPEN LETTER: IN PROTEST

 

The Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation Board of Directors has invited
Israeli General Freddy Zach to speak at its Annual Campaign Event
(fundraiser) at the Illinois Terminal on November 3rd.

 

Zach is described as having "served several important administrative posts
in the West Bank and Gaza," from 1977 to 1992. This period of the Israeli
occupation included intense and of course illegal Jewish settlement
activity, an upsurge in Jewish settler religious fanaticism, unsuccessful
Israeli efforts to recruit Palestinian collaborators to implement
neocolonial "autonomy" under the cover of "Village Leagues," and the violent
and lethal repression of the first intifada (1987-93), a spontaneous
Palestinian uprising characterized by stone-throwing youths. During this
period, the illegal appropriation of Palestinian lands and resources,
including water and agricultural, proceeded methodically and relentlessly.

 

Zach is also described by the Jewish Federation as having been "governor" of
several districts, including Hebron from 1979-81. During that time,
religious extremists led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger established an intimidating
and disruptive foothold in Hebron's Old City, and have terrorized the
Palestinian population ever since, all the while being protected by Israeli
troops--presumably including those under General Zach's command.

 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that, "the
Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies." The commentary of the
International Committee of the Red Cross on this article states that the
article is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World
War by certain Powers (primarily Nazi Germany), which transferred portions
of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial
reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. 

With orders carried out by General Zach and his colleagues, the Israeli
government -- not settlers themselves -- initiated most of the Jewish
settlement activities in the Occupied Territories. All of the relevant
ministries and authorities have assisted in this illegal effort by first
expropriating land, and then planning, implementing, and financing the
construction of settlements. The various Israeli governments encouraged and
continue to encourage Israeli civilians to move to the Occupied Territories
by providing benefits, such as grants and loans under favorable terms. 

 

General Zach has clearly and willingly acted to implement state policies of
international criminality.

At a more general level, Jewish-American intellectual Noam Chomsky has
written that "The key feature of the occupation has always been humiliation:
they must not be allowed to raise their heads. The basic principle, often
openly expressed, is that the Araboushim (a derogatory word for Arabs used
by Israelis) must understand who rules this land and who walks in it with
head lowered and eyes averted. If shopkeepers try to open their stores in
the afternoon as a gesture of independence, the army compels them to close
in the afternoon and open in the morning. If a remote village declares
itself 'liberated,' meaning that it will run its own internal affairs, the
army attacks, and if stones are thrown as villagers try to keep the soldiers
out, the result will be killings, beatings, destruction of property, mass
arrests, torture." Such are the realities of the "administration" of the
occupied territories by Israeli military officials such as General Zach.

 

There has never been a time of more desperate need for Jews to understand
the history of Palestinian oppression, the illegal and immoral nature of the
occupation, and the ongoing threat to the security of both Palestinians and
Israelis that has been created by the policies of Israel's past and current
administrations of either political party.

 

The invitation to General Zach by the Jewish Federation of Champaign-Urbana
shows a blatant insensitivity to the truth, to international law, to the
rights of Palestinians, and to the security of Israelis-ultimately dependent
on the good-faith recognition of  Palestinian rights as part of a just peace
agreement.

 

While we stand in support of freedom of speech, we stand in principled
opposition to the words of those whose actions have clearly contributed to
institutionalized dispossession and the needless deaths of both Palestinians
and Israelis. The invitation to General Zach was ill-advised, and indicates
another lost opportunity for honest understanding, self-criticism, and the
assumption of moral responsibility by the leaders of the C-U Jewish
Federation. The views of these leaders in no way represent those of all
Jews, either in the U.S. or in Israel.

 

Signed,

 

 

 

 

 

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