[Peace-discuss] Letters, Letters, Letters

[David Green]

My letter below was published in yesterday’s (Sunday)
Tribune, over three weeks after it was sent in
response to Alan Dershowitz’s customary
self-gratification. In the meantime, they have refused
to publish a column by Norman Finkelstein,
Dershowitz’s most formidable protagonist. His
submission, plus an explanation, is below. Also below
are two letters published today (10/3) in the New York
Times, showing that in this instance, at least, there
is a level playing field between the truth and
outright lies. Finally, an editorial published in last
week’s Daily Illini, and my response sent over the
weekend, not yet published:

A two-state solution to Mideast conflict

David Green

Published October 2, 2005

Champaign -- Alan M. Dershowitz, Harvard law
professor, is wrong to blame the lack of a settlement
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on "right-wing
American Jews and Christians who are more Israeli than
the Israelis, Islamic fundamentalists and left-wing
European and American academics, politicians and
church leaders who are more Palestinian than the
Palestinians" ("This time, peace may be real thing,"
Commentary, Sept. 9).

Since the mid-1970s, Palestinians and other Arabs and
Muslims (and the left in this country and Europe) have
supported a just two-state solution along the lines of
the borders prior to the 1967 war, in accordance with
United Nations Resolution 242. Their proposals have
for three decades been unceremoniously rejected by the
governments of both Israel and the United States,
which continue to oppose a solution that respects the
human rights of the Palestinian people and the rights
of Palestinian refugees, while supporting the
expansion of illegal settlements.

Moreover Dershowitz is disingenuous: Until recently he
clearly rejected the two-state solution that has long
been the consensus of the international community,
including the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, and
he continues to dismiss the rights of Palestinian
refugees.

The professor doth posture too much.


*****


Judge Deeds, Not Words

By Norman G. Finkelstein

On the night of August 24, 2005, Israeli troops shot
dead three teenage boys and two adults in a West Bank
Palestinian refugee camp. An army communiqué claimed
the five were terrorists, killed after opening fire on
the soldiers. An investigation by Israel's leading
human rights organization, B'Tselem, and its leading
newspaper, Haaretz, found, however, that the teenagers
were unarmed and had no connection with any terrorist
organizations, while neither of the two adults was
armed or wanted by the Israelis.[1] 

In Israel, as elsewhere, it's prudent to treat
official pronouncements with skepticism. 

This is especially so when it comes to the "peace
process."

Israel's announcement that it would withdraw from the
Gaza Strip won high praise in the American media as a
major step toward ending the occupation of Palestinian
land. Human rights organizations and academic
specialists were less sanguine, however. 

In a recent study entitled One Big Prison, B'Tselem
observes that the crippling economic arrangements
Israel has imposed on Gaza will remain in effect. In
addition, Israel will continue to maintain absolute
control over Gaza's land borders, coastline and
airspace, and the Israeli army will continue to
operate in Gaza. "So long as these methods of control
remain in Israeli hands," it concludes, "Israel's
claim of an 'end of the occupation' is
questionable."[2] 

The respected organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) is
yet more emphatic that evacuating troops and Jewish
settlements from inside Gaza will not end the
occupation: "Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza
or redeployed around its periphery, and restricting
entrance and exit, it remains in control."[3] 

The world's leading authority on the Gaza Strip, Sara
Roy of Harvard University, predicts that Gaza will
remain "an imprisoned enclave," while its economy,
still totally dependent on Israel after disengagement
and in shambles after decades of deliberately ruinous
policies by Israel, will actually deteriorate.[4] This
conclusion is echoed by the World Bank, which
forecasts that, if Israel seals Gaza's borders or
curtails its utilities, the disengagement plan will
"create worse hardship than is seen today."[5] 

Matters are scarcely better in the West Bank. Although
Israel has announced its intention to dismantle four
of the 120 settlements there, this decision pales
beside its relentless annexation of wide swaths of the
West Bank. 

A recent UN report finds that the wall Israel is
constructing encroaches deeply into Palestinian
territory, resulting in the isolation of tens of
thousands of Palestinians and the confiscation of
fully ten percent of West Bank land, "including the
most fertile areas in the West Bank."[6] 

According to Roy, Palestinians will have access to
only half the West Bank once the wall is complete,
"deepening the dispossession and isolation of
Palestinian communities."[7] 

Israel proclaims that it is building the wall for
"security" reasons, but human rights organizations
disagree. Its real purpose, they suggest, is "to make
contiguous with Israel illegal civilian settlements"
(HRW) and "to facilitate their future annexation into
Israel" (B'Tselem).[8] 

In a landmark July 2004 decision on the wall, the
International Court of Justice unanimously agreed that
establishment of these Jewish settlements "violates"
(U.S. Judge Buergenthal) the Geneva Convention, and
overwhelmingly ruled that construction of the wall was
"contrary to international law."[9] 

Yet, nowhere have official Israeli words about peace
been more dramatically belied by bitter deeds than in
Jerusalem. 

In a recent report entitled The Jerusalem Powder Keg,
the authoritative International Crisis Group finds
that Prime Minister Sharon "risks choking off Arab
East Jerusalem by further fragmenting it and
surrounding it with Jewish neighborhoods/settlements."
Hundreds of thousands of Arab Jerusalemites will be
isolated from the West Bank and placed under stricter
Israeli control inside the city's new borders, while
tens of thousands of Arab Jerusalemites will be
stranded on the outside and cut off from their city. 

In the meantime Israeli plans, well underway, to
incorporate far-flung illegal Jewish settlements into
Jerusalem "would go close to cutting the West Bank
into two." 

Israeli annexationist policies in and around
Jerusalem, according to Crisis Group, will have
"arguably devastating consequences," not least because
"it remains virtually impossible to conceive of a
Palestinian state without its capital in Jerusalem." 

Although Prime Minister Sharon gives lip-service to a
two-state settlement, the actions of the Israeli
government, Crisis Group concludes, "are at war with
any viable two-state solution and will not bolster
Israel's security; in fact, they will undermine it,
weakening Palestinian pragmatists,
 and sowing the
seeds of growing radicalization."[10] 

Those committed to a just and lasting peace in the
Israel-Palestine conflict would do well to pay closer
attention to Israeli deeds than to the official words
accompanying them.
17 September 2005


Norman G. Finkelstein teaches at DePaul University in
Chicago. His latest book is Beyond Chutzpah: On the
misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history.

These references are for fact-checking only.

1. Arnon Regular, "IDF chief to probe Tul Karm raid
that killed five Palestinians," Haaretz (7 September
2005).
2. B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human
Rights in the Occupied Territories), One Big Prison:
Freedom of movement to and from the Gaza Strip on the
eve of the Disengagement Plan (March 2005).
3. Human Rights Watch, "'Disengagement' Will Not End
Gaza Occupation" (19 August 2005). 
4. Sara Roy, "Praying with Their Eyes Closed:
Reflections on the Disengagement from Gaza," Journal
of Palestine Studies (Summer 2005).
5. World Bank, Disengagement, the Palestinian Economy
and the Settlements (23 June 2004).
6. Report on UNCTAD's Assistance to the Palestinian
People, prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat (21 July
2005). 
7. Op. cit.
8. Human Rights Watch, Israel's "Separation Barrier"
in the Occupied Territories: Human rights and
international humanitarian law consequences (February
2004); B'Tselem, Behind the Barrier: Human rights
violations as a result of Israel's separation barrier
(2003).
9. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in
the Occupied Palestinian Territory (July 2004). 
10. International Crisis Group, The Jerusalem Powder
Keg (2 August 2005). 
 
 
Finkelstein comments: It is a convention that the
author of a newly-published book on a topical issue
receives special consideration from the op-ed page
editor. I submitted this op-ed to the New York Times,
Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science
Monitor, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. They
all rejected it. I then followed up on the rejection
from the Chicago Tribune, since Chicago is where I
teach and the Tribune had earlier published an op-ed
by Alan Dershowitz on this topic. The op-ed page
editor, Marcia Lythcott (mlythcott at tribune.com) just
kept repeating, "I will not publish that op-ed."
Readers might want to ask her and her editor, R. Bruce
Dold (bdold at tribune.com), why the Tribune is so
vehement about not publishing an alternative viewpoint
based on mainstream human rights sources. 

*******

A reader's letter to the Tribune"

Dear Ms. Lythcott:

I was distressed to learn via Professor Norman
Finkelstein's website that you refused to publish an
op-ed piece submitted to the Tribune recently on the
Israel-Palestine conflict. As a lifelong Chicago-area
resident and Tribune reader, I feel I must voice my
objection to your decision to suppress Mr.
Finkelstein's comments.

Mr. Finkelstein, although known as a "controversial"
figure, is without doubt, one of the most thoughtful
and, more importantly, thorough academics working
today. His work on the Israel-Palestine conflict is an
important and powerful antidote to the usual
commentary offered in the so-called American
mainstream of opinion.

Quite frankly, I feel that the Tribune is like most
other major news outlets in the country and does not
inform its readers very well on most subjects, and
this is no exception. The Tribune is one of the most
important newspapers in America and probably the
world. Its circulation as well as the prestige and
awards garnered by the paper have given the Tribune
this prestige. But as we all know, with privilege
comes responsibility. It is my belief that the Tribune
[must] give fair voice to all points of view on a
subject, particularly one with as much validity as Mr.
Finkelstein's, and also in the face of your recently
having given space in your op-ed page to Alan
Dershowitz, whose views Mr. Finkelstein's have come in
conflict with directly. It is obvously your wish not
to publish the op-ed piece; however, if you choose not
to do so, I would recommend that you abandon all
pretense of representing freedom of speech and freedom
of the press. This is not a problem exclusive to the
Tribune, but I think that the press should not
consider itself a bulwark of independence or an
opposition to those in power if it does not care to
share all points of view. Furthermore, I think that if
you do not choose to publish the op-ed, you should at
least give Mr. Finkelstein a valid reason as to why
you will not do so. He is a serious individual and
should be taken seriously. Once again, I would not be
abnormally offended if you refused to publish his
op-ed on the grounds that you don't want to share all
points of view on a subject; I have come to expect
that from the mainstream media.

But he deserves an explanation.

Sincerely,
Adam Dahlgren
Evanston

*******
New York Times

October 3, 2005

Ideas for Sharon and the Palestinians (2 Letters) 

To the Editor:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has already demonstrated
his courageous leadership and commitment to reaching
full peace with the Palestinians ("Ariel Sharon's
Choice: Israel or Likud?," editorial, Sept. 28). 
He transferred Gaza to the Palestinian Authority with
the conviction that it was the correct and necessary
thing to do for Israel's security and for the peace
process. He did so despite opposition within his own
Likud Party, and also while under the constant threat
of assassination by some extremist Israelis.
The question of choice you pose should be directed at
the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Is he ready now
to make every effort to nurture a culture of peace
among his people, or will he continue to tolerate the
rhetoric of violence and conflict that is taught in
Palestinian schools and displayed daily by Hamas and
other terror groups in Gaza and in Palestinian areas
in the West Bank?
Israel will continue to negotiate with the
Palestinians, but the first step in the road map
requires the Palestinians to end their terror
activities. When Hamas and others turn in their arms
voluntarily or are disarmed by the Palestinian
Authority, it will then become apparent which path Mr.
Abbas truly intends to take. 

E. Robert Goodkind
President, American Jewish Committee
New York, Sept. 28, 2005• 

*****

To the Editor:

"Ariel Sharon's Choice: Israel or Likud?" refers to a
negotiated Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and
the Palestinian responsibility to stop violent acts
against Israel. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
demands an end of Palestinian violence before Israel
even enters talks. 
The so-called road map for peace expects simultaneous
steps, including the end of indiscriminate violence by
Israeli soldiers and settlers against Palestinian
civilians, the dismantling of dozens of small Jewish
settlements in the West Bank, and the end of expansion
of existing settlements. In addition, those parts of
Israel's separation barrier that are in the West Bank
and East Jerusalem violate international law.
Yet settlement expansion and the wall continue, as
does violence against Palestinian civilians. The
Israeli newspaper Haaretz tells of Israeli soldiers
ignoring settler "pogroms" against Palestinians in
Hebron, and Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and Btselem, Israel's leading human rights
organization, report that Israeli soldiers and
settlers act "with impunity" against helpless
Palestinian civilians.
Until Israel begins to seriously meet its obligations
under the road map and international law, no
Palestinian leader will use force against militants
for fear of being seen by Palestinians as a
collaborator.

Edmund R. Hanauer
Exec. Dir., Search for Justice and Equality in
Palestine/Israel 
Framingham, Mass., Sept. 28, 2005

*******

The Daily Illini - Opinions 
Issue: 9/28/05 

Editorial: Act for peace

By The Daily Illini Editorial Staff 

The last Israeli soldiers left the Gaza settlement
area on Sept. 12 and with their departure came what
many hoped would be another step in bringing peace to
the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel.
Recent events, however, encourage nothing but
pessimism for the region as violence continues even
after an Israeli exit.

Until now, the Gaza Strip has been under limited
Palestinian Authority control but included 21 Israeli
settlements and another four in the West Bank after
the 1967 "Six-Day War." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
proposed and adopted plan for disengagement started on
Aug. 15 and the Israeli military completed the
withdrawal in less than a month, despite harsh
protests from residents who desired to stay.

If the point of a withdrawal was to lower the level of
violence between Palestine and Israel, then the
disengagement must be called into question with the
recent events.

When a truck exploded during a Hamas rally in Gaza on
Sept. 23, resulting in the death of 19 people, the
leaders of Hamas blamed Israel and launched at least
40 Qassam rockets toward Israel. While Israel and the
Palestinian Authority have both said the explosion was
due to the mishandling of explosives by Hamas
militants, terrorist operations continue to target
civilians, threatening the stability of the region and
the fragile truce between the Israelis and
Palestineans. 

Violence breeds violence, and Israel responded by
stepping up anti-terrorist operations in the region by
targeting terrorist buildings in airstrikes and
arresting 379 suspected terrorists believed to be
associated with Hamas in the West Bank. 

It can be perceived that Israel is promoting violence
within the region overstepping their authority, but
according to the disengagement plan, the Israeli
Defense Force reserves the authority to "guard and
monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip"
along with the coastline and still engage in military
actions when it deems necessary. Israel has the
authorization and the right to defend its state and
its people from terrorists, and should continue to do
so.

While the Israeli response will inevitably include
collateral damage on the innocent, which only adds
fuel to the terrorist movements in the region, the
problem should not be faulted to their anti-terrorist
operations. Instead, the Palestinian Authority must
exert control over the people they claim to govern and
work with Israel to curb and eliminate terrorists who
threaten the peace. The terrorist organizations in the
region, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, must
be stopped by both communities if there is any real
desire to move forward. There cannot be a default,
all-encompassing blame placed upon Israel for the
deaths caused by retaliatory strikes, when they are
only carried out in response to an obvious terrorist
threat. Terrorists are not enemies of just Israel;
they are the assassins of peace and freedom. The fact
that the Palestinian leaders refuse to take any
tangible action against these groups in fear of
triggering a civil war shows the lack of maturity of
the Palestinian Authority as a governing body. Only
when these leaders are able to exert full control and
harness consensus among Palestinians will any progress
made between the two sides be tenable.

Now, with Sharon authorizing a resolution to
assassinate top-tier terrorist leaders and a
proclamation to "hurt the terrorists and not let up,"
it is clear that the war against extremism will
continue. But this does not have to be a conflict that
Israel fights alone. The choice to be involved in
future prosperity is one that Palestinian leaders must
not only agree with, but also show action on. 

*****

Editor:

The DI editors’ “Act for Peace” (9/28), regarding the
Israel-Palestine conflict, perpetuates the myth that
Israel only retaliates against Palestinian violence,
and has every right to do so--even in illegally and
violently occupied territory, and in spite of the
resulting deaths of innocent civilians, including
children. The editors essentially adopt the brazen
rhetoric of Israeli state propagandists. This
perspective is oblivious to incontrovertible realities
that are well-documented, both historically and in the
current context.

	The best current source for an objective perspective
is Norman Finkelstein’s “Beyond Chutzpah: On the
Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History,”
which exhaustively documents the long-term, flagrant
abuses reported by mainstream human rights
organizations, including Israeli. These abuses are
policy-driven outcomes of an ongoing 38-year
occupation, the relentless confiscation of Palestinian
land by illegal settlers, and the systematic
destruction of Palestinian economy, society, and
culture. This process is institutionalized in Israeli
laws, U.S. government funding for Israel, and the
support of Jewish-American institutions, both secular
and religious, including Champaign-Urbana Jewish
Federation, whose President also heads the “Program
for Jewish Culture and Society,” one of whose
functions is to sanitize the above.

	In a separate article, Finkelstein reports: “On the
night of August 24, 2005, Israeli troops shot dead
three teenage boys and two adults in a West Bank
Palestinian refugee camp. An army communiqué claimed
the five were terrorists, killed after opening fire on
the soldiers. An investigation by Israel's leading
human rights organization, B'Tselem, and its leading
newspaper, Haaretz, found that the teenagers were
unarmed and had no connection with any terrorist
organizations, while neither of the two adults was
armed or wanted by the Israelis.”

	Given both available scholarship and the internet,
the editors no longer can be excused for their failure
to educate themselves on so vital a global issue.

David Green
Champaign




		
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