[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [GushShalom] Avnery on Abu Mazen's need for credit/the victory of the violin by Meir Shalev

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:26:54 +0200
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>Subject: [GushShalom] Avnery on Abu Mazen's need for credit/the victory of
>	the violin by Meir Shalev
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>Palestinian elections and new leadership - brutal occupation continues
>
>
>[ Double-click this line for list subscription options ]
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>GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033  www.gush-shalom.org/
>
>
>
>1) Free Elections? - Gush ad on Sharon rhetoric and practice
>2) "Give Me Some Credit!" - Avnery on Abu Mazen and the Palestinian      
>    elections
>3) "In the end, it is the violin which wins" by Meir Shalev
>
>
>
>1) Free Elections? - Gush ad on Sharon rhetoric and practice
>
>òáøéú áàúø / Hebrew on the website
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/
>
>Sharon has promised the Americans and the Europeans not to sabotage the
>Palestinian elections.
>
>And in practice?
>
>* The members of a regional election committee were held up for six hours
>at a checkpoint between Yata and Hebron.
>
>* Instead of setting prisoners free, the army continues every night to
>arrest activists of all factions, including people active in the election
>campaign.
>
>* While the Fatah leadership in Ramallah is discussing the elections,
>Fatah activist Muhammad Rassan and two of his colleagues were killed in a
>Ramallah suburb.
>
>* The Israeli army continues to shoot without warning at Palestinian
>policemen who are carrying arms, calling them ‘terrorists'. These are the
>same policemen who are supposes to maintain order during the election
>campaign.
>
>Under such conditions, free elections are impossible.
>We are warning again: Don’t listen to what Sharon is saying, look at what
>Sharon is doing!
>
>Gush Shalom ad published in Ha'aretz
>November 26, 2004
>
>P.S. The following appears in today's Ha'aretz
>
>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/507164.html
>(...)Samir Hijazi, a 38-year-old physician, died of wounds he sustained
>when the IDF fired tank shells and automatic gunfire towards the Rafah
>refugee camp near the Gaza-Egyptian border. Palestinians said Hijazi was
>critically wounded by gunfire as he passed by a petrol station close to
>his home on the outskirts of the camp. Medics who evacuated him
>recognized him as being a local physician, hospital officials said.(...)
>Meanwhile, Ra'anan Gissin, a top aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
>said Sunday that Israel has scaled back military activity in Palestinian
>areas
>
>
>2) "Give Me Some Credit!" - Avnery on Abu Mazen and the Palestinian      
>    elections
>
>Avnery - a longtime observer of the Palestinian political scene and
>participant in dialogue with many of its leading figures - analyses the
>dilemmas and opportunities facing Abu Mazen.
>a scapegoat.
>
>òáøéú áàúø / Hebrew on the website
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/
>
>Uri Avnery
>27.11.04
>     “Give Me Some Credit!”
>
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html
>
>    
>“Give me some credit!” the new Israeli Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, cried
>out at the Labor Party convention in February 1965, addressing David Ben-
>Gurion.
>
>>From the moment he resigned, Ben-Gurion started to undermine his
>successor. Eshkol, who until then had only dealt with finances, looked
>pale and ineffectual next to his monumental predecessor, the Father of
>the State, the leader in two wars.
>
>Eshkol meant his words quite literally. He said: “Ben-Gurion, I shall use
>the language of a treasurer: Give me some credit! That’s all I ask, for
>one term in office, four years at most!”
>
>The dramatic cry did not help. Ben-Gurion left the party and continued to
>rain fire and brimstone on Eshkol.
>
>Abu Mazen finds himself in a similar situation today. He, too, could cry
>out: “Give me some credit!”
>
>Of course, his great predecessor cannot attack him except indirectly, by
>way of his legacy. But Abu Mazen has enough opponents in his own  Fatah
>party.
>
>Television presents this as a personal fight between him and the middle
>generation, in particular Marwan Barghouti. That lies in the nature of
>television. Since the small screen is at its best when it shows a human
>face, but is unable to show ideas, every controversy becomes a matter of
>personalities (confirming, by the way, the famous dictum of the Canadian
>thinker, Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message”  - meaning that
>reality is shaped by the character of the media.)
>
>Naturally, the Abu Mazen-Barghouti controversy does partly reflect a
>personal and generational confrontation. Abu Mazen represents the Fatah
>Old Guard, while his opponents represent the fighters of the first and
>second intifadas. But the real confrontation is between two world views
>and two grand strategies for the Palestinian national liberation
>struggle. 
>
>I heard the name Abu Mazen for the first time in 1974, when I established
>contact with the PLO leadership. I asked my first partner, Sa’id Hamami,
>the peace martyr, to tell me who was standing behind him. He informed me,
>in confidence, that Fatah had set up a three-member committee to direct
>contacts with Israelis. I called them the “Three Abus” – Abu Amar (Yasser
>Arafat), Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas) and Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf).
>
>Among the three, Abu Mazen was directly in charge of Israeli affairs. His
>doctoral thesis at Moscow University was about the Zionist movement’s
>activities during the Holocaust, and once I was even asked to bring him
>books about the Kastner Affair (the negotiations between  the Zionist
>Rescue Committee and Adolf Eichmann in 1944).
>
>I met him for the first time face to face when a delegation of the
>Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (General Matti Peled,
>former Treasury Director Ya’acov Arnon and myself) was invited to meet
>Arafat in Tunis in January 1983. Before the meeting, we spoke with Abu
>Mazen, as in all the subsequent meetings in Tunis: we always discussed
>our ideas first with Abu Mazen and then brought our proposals to Arafat,
>who spoke the final word.
>
>This experience helps me to understand Abu Mazen’s approach nowadays. His
>strategy goes like this: the main Palestinian effort must be directed
>towards the United States and the Israeli public. There is now an
>opportunity to change the one-sided policy of President Bush. During his
>second term of office he can ignore the powerful Jewish lobby, since he
>cannot be elected again anyhow.
>
>Israeli public opinion, too, can be changed. For this, the armed intifada
>must be stopped. In Abu Mazen’s view, it has brought no benefits to the
>Palestinians, but rather hurt their cause.
>
>Most of the young Fatah generation rejects this view out of hand. They
>believe that it is based on illusions. Bush is under the influence of
>Sharon and, anyhow, he is one of the Christian fundamentalists who
>support the most extreme right-wing in Israel. Also, it makes no sense to
>rely on the Israeli Peace Camp, which has forsaken the Palestinians in
>their hour of dire need. Except for some small groups, they have done
>nothing to end the brutal occupation, the killing, the destruction and
>starving out, the choking separation wall and the expropriation of land
>and water. All it does is issue papers that have no effect whatsoever.
>
>The armed actions, the young Fatah activists believe, do bear fruit. They
>have hit the Israeli economy hard. They have created an atmosphere of
>fear and a reality of poverty. They have produced a readiness to give up
>the Palestinian territories. The Israelis understand only the language of
>force.
>
>A more moderate variant of this attitude proposes intensifying attacks on
>settlers and soldiers, but stopping the attacks on civilians in Israel
>proper. Meaning: the suicide bombings.
>
>While Arafat was alive, the controversy did not get out of hand, because
>Arafat, as was his wont, created a synthesis between the two approaches.
>He used – alternately or simultaneously – diplomacy and violence,
>according to the changing situation. The adherents of both strategies saw
>him as their leader. And, indeed, Arafat led the strategy of recognizing
>Israel and seeking peace with it, as in Oslo. But when he came to the
>conclusion that this effort had run into an Israeli wall, he used
>violence. Marwan Barghouti was his pupil.
>
>Now Arafat is gone. The two strategies clash in the Palestinian society,
>and perhaps in every Palestinian home.
>
>One thing must be clear: the debate about strategy does not reflect a
>divergence of aims. All Fatah factions are united around the aims laid
>down by Arafat: a Palestinian state, the pre-1967 borders (with some
>possible exchange of territories), East Jerusalem as the capital of
>Palestine, sovereignty over the temple Mount, evacuation of the
>settlements, an agreed solution to the refugee problem. There is no
>argument about these.
>     
>So how will the controversy be settled?
>
>It will not be easy for the wearers of suits to overcome the bearers of
>Kalashnikovs, who put their lives on the line every day. But the
>Palestinians will use their intelligence. They may well ask themselves:
>Abu Mazen wants credit? Let’s give him credit. He believes that he can
>extract concessions from Bush and Sharon? Why not give him a chance?
>
>Let him try to achieve an end to “targeted liquidations”, “verification
>of killing”, demolition of homes, degradation at the checkpoints. Let him
>try to get meaningful peace negotiations started. Let’s see if Bush
>offers him more than empty phrases.
>
>The first time, when the Americans pressured the Palestinians into
>appointing Abu Mazen Prime Minister, he got nothing. Sharon stuck a knife
>in his back. Bush ignored him..
>
>If he can really achieve something this time – so much the better. If
>not, the Kalashnikovs will speak again. That is the background of Marwan
>Barghouti’s decision not to run this time.
>
>Every credit expires sometime. Half a year? A year? Certainly no more.
>Abu Mazen has already promised Barghouti to hold elections inside Fatah
>within nine months.
>
>If the credit bears no interest, the Third Intifada will surely follow. 
>
>
>3) "In the end, it is the violin which wins" by Meir Shalev
>
>Meir Shalev, well-known writer, writes a regular column for the Yediot
>Aharonot weekend edition. Normally it is printed on an inner page, but
>last week (NOv. 26) it appeared on the front page, accompanied by photos.
>The decision of Israel's largest mass-circulation paper to publish it as
>conspicuously as possible ads interest to an article which in any case
>would have been well worth the effort of Gush Shalom to translate it into
>English and make it available internationally.
>
>In the end, it is the violin which wins
>
>Meir Shalev
>Yediot Aharonot, 26.11.2004
>
>So, what did we have in the past weeks? We had an officer who "confirmed"
>the killing of a 13-year old girl. We had soldiers mutilating the dead
>body of an enemy and posing for photos with a cut-off head and a
>cigarette placed between the dead lips. We had soldiers at a checkpoint
>demanding that a passing Palestinian play the violin for them. And we had
>several members of the naval commandos pose naked for a photo on top of
>Mount Hermon. This is what our armed forces issue in the course of one or
>two weeks. 
>
>About the "confirming kill" of the girl, the army conducted a flawed and
>lying investigation. The mutilation of bodies is still under
>investigation, please be patient. About the soldiers before whom the
>Palestinian had to play his violin, the army spokesman said that they
>were insensitive. But the commandos who posed naked were cashiered
>forthwith - for the IDF is a moral army which cuts off abominations from
>its midst. When it is rally necessary, the IDF knows how to to take a
>swift and decisive action.
>
>I look at the photo of the Palestinian playing the violin to our
>soldiers. The face seems very familiar. It seems very familiar because
>this deliberately expressionless look on the face, this intentionally
>unfocused gaze, is very common at thousands of checkpoint encounters, and
>even at ID checks conducted by our fighters right here in the center of
>the city. But it is also familiar because we know this sight from the not
>too distant past, we know it very well from the other side of the violin,
>and the other side of the checkpoint, and the other side of the gun
>barrel.
>
>"Such severe incidents make clear the imperative need for continuing our
>efforts to make our troops understand the message" said the army
>spokesman in response to the checkpoint recital. But the message was
>already long ago delivered and well understood. It was understood when
>the army not only allowed the settlers to mistreat Palestinian civilians,
>but often itself acted on the settlers' behalf. The message was well
>understood when the commander of the air force said that he feels nothing
>when dropping a one-ton bomb on a Gaza neighborhood - and was rewarded
>for that statement by a promotion to deputy chief-of-staff. The message
>was understood when a division commander was cashiered for leaking
>information to a journalist, after having been praised for an operation
>in which civilians were indiscriminately killed and their homes razed to
>the ground. The message is well understood indeed, the understanding of
>it and its implementation have long ago spread from the army and into the
>behavior of drivers on the road, and the violence of pupils at school,
>and the economic policy which is trampling over the poor.
>
>And the army spokesman also said that the soldiers' conduct towards the
>violinist was "An insensitive conduct by soldiers who are facing a
>complicated and dangerous situation". This automatic-modular answer
>clearly shows that the army spokesman does not understand the true
>complexity and the true danger of the situation. For once, we were the
>people who played the violin. The Jewish violin played in weddings, and
>at concert halls, and before the thugs in the camps. We played and 
>joked: the violin is our instrument because it is so small, so easy to
>carry when you need to run away...
>
>Zionism asked of us to lay the violin aside for some time, to pick up the
>rifle instead  "until things get better". The Territories and all that is
>involved in holding them have made this into a permanent situation. And
>here  is the real danger. For in the end, it is the violin which wins.   
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
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