[Schwartz] Is/Pal - an eye for an eye shall make Israel blind

The BBC Online and the has a startling report of revenge attacks by elements of the Israel Defense Forces:

Two Israeli soldiers have alleged that they were ordered to carry out revenge attacks on Palestinian police after six of their comrades were killed.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed in response to the troops' deaths.

The Israeli army said it had targeted policemen who actively assisted militants in carrying out killings.

But it is not clear whether the Palestinians killed had actually aided militants.

The report notes, "Correspondents say the report is a challenge to Israel's insistence that it abides by a strict code of ethics and has avoided tit-for-tat killings." That's an understatement. While I was in Israel during the late 2004 IDF campaign in Gaza, there was the incident of the Israeli sergeant executing a wounded Palestinian 14-year-old-girl (he claimed it was because he wasn't sure if her backpack contained explosives or not. Why then did the soldiers in his own unit try to stop him, and then went so far as to telephone the Israeli media about what happened?)

The first soldier's story:

The first soldier, who describes himself as a sergeant in a reconnaissance unit, was quoted on the website of Breaking the Silence, a group set up by former soldiers to document evidence of abuses by the Israeli Defence Force.

He said his squad was summoned by their commander after the killings of six Israelis at a checkpoint near Ramallah in the West Bank.

He told them their task was to kill six Palestinians in revenge.

"I really enjoyed it," he said. "It was the first time that we were in an 'advance storm' situation, like in our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed superbly."

The soldier added that several of his comrades kept shooting at one of the bodies, "punching holes in it".

The second soldier's story:

A second soldier, from paratroop reconnaissance, was quoted by the UK Guardian newspaper as saying that he was told to attack three checkpoints in the Nablus area and simply shoot at police.

It was clearly a revenge attack, he said.

At least two Palestinians were killed in the raid.

No mention of this yet in the Israeli media.

This report reminds me all too much of the countless everyday Israeli young men I encountered who displayed a strong bloodthirst. Take for example the Russian oleh hadesh and the Sepharadi I met in the Beer Sheva train station. Believe me, the bloodthirst is just as virulent on the other side of the Green Line.

When a highly trained and organized military such as the IDF has repeated incidents of this tit-for-tat madness, just how deteriorated is the moral and spiritual character of Israeli society? Are the monsters beginning to strip away their camouflage of human flesh and tears?

Of interest:
א Breaking the Silence: Israeli Soldiers Reflect on Patrolling Hebron
בּ Parting shots Ari Shavit's interview with retiring IDF Chief of Staff Moshe ("Bogey") Ya'alon's retirement, who (in)famously remarked, ""the Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy," that Israelis "could leave the Golan," and numerous statements critical of Israel state and defense policy.

If you are an Israeli or Palestinian university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

Click on "continue reading"

Meanwhile, Haaretz has two important reports:
גּ Quoting a New York Times report (how did they get the scoop on Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post?) Syria test-fires three Scud missiles, Israelis say

Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, The New York Times quoted Israeli military officials as saying.

These were the first such Syrian missile tests since 2001, the paper's Web site quoted the Israelis as saying, and were part of a Syrian missile development project using North Korean technology and designed, the Israelis contend, to deliver air-burst chemical weapons.

All the missiles were launched from northern Syria, near Minakh, north of Aleppo, the Times quoted the Israeli officials as saying. One was sent about 400 kilometers to southernmost Syria, near the Jordanian border. The one that broke up was fired southwest toward the Mediterranean, over the Turkish province of Hatay, the ancient Antioch, and shed debris over two villages there. The Israelis said they had film of the launching and breakup.

דּ Census: Arabs form largest constituency in Labor Party

For the first time in the history of the Labor [Avoda] Party, its Arab members have become the largest constituency.

It emerged last night that the Arab constituency made up approximately 22 percent of Labor Party members, according to party membership poll data. The rate of kibbutz members, traditionally a prominent Labor constituency, dropped from 16 to 10 percent.

Contrary to the Arab sector, the constituency of the kibbutz sector [the heart and soul of Avoda] diminished significantly. This was probably the result of massive efforts by Ben-Eliezer and Amir Peretz, a chairmanship candidate and the Histadrut chief, to sign up Arab members in the census.

So far, only 9,972 members signed up in the kibbutz sector, compared with 17,629 in 2002, when they formed approximately 16 percent of the total number of party members.

Now this is surprising!

Unfortunately, this isn't: Arab Israelis are still waiting to be accepted by the big leagues of Israeli civil society.

[Arab-Israeli/Palestinian citizen of Israel athlete Bnei] Sakhnin's drive to be accepted in the league, in society, to survive in the league of acceptance, is the challenge they have thrown into the national arena. It's no easy challenge for Israel. When the challenge is overtly political, demanding, it's so easy for the majority to fob it off: Old-style challenges arouse fear, create resistance to change. The Sakhnin soccer challenge creates a level playing-ground for the majority to grapple with the minority's quest to belong.

And despite high levels of education, the Falashim aren't doing so well in the Israeli job market.

[Schwartz] ﷲ - The faith of Allah

Islam is ill.

As someone who once very seriously considered converting to the religion—I privately practiced the rituals and debated with myself for five years, nearly making the declaration of faith [shahada] on at least three separate occasions—believe me when I say there is a cancer in the heart of the Muslim creed.

"Yeah, so?" you (who may or may not be Muslim yourself) say, "We know this already. The symptoms are everywhere: mysogynism, theocracy, not a little bit of fascism, and terrorism."

But you don’t really know. The tumor is not the pillars of Islamic belief, nor the Qur`an or the Prophet Muhammad. It is the Muslims.

They refuse to accept the essential human reality of tragedy. They deny our species’ all-too-innate shortcomings—and our infinite potential for redemption.

Click on "continue reading" [The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily represent the views of Thinking-East, its editorial staff or contributors.]

A prophet dies

Fifteen centuries ago, the Prophet Muhammad was dying, but for a while, only he knew that he was. In a cemetery in Mecca late one night, the old man was taking a stroll with a former servant and confidant.

“Allah has offered me a choice...” he said, pausing to gaze across the gravestones.

Tides of sand and dust had washed over the cemetery for generations, burying epitaphs, silencing the echoes of prayers. Perhaps the old man, as he looked upon the ruined headstones, traversed the caravan route of his memories:

the night of his first revelation, when the angel Gabriel embraced him in a cave...

his terror afterwards, running back home, wrapping himself in a blanket, the whispers pursuing him, and Khadijah, his first wife, most beloved of all his lovers, holding him close...

his first sermons, the hopeful eyes of youth and widows, the wrathful glares of the Meccan merchants and elders...

the persecutions, the deaths—his beloved among the lost—the revelations growing angrier and more apocalyptic...

his incredible dream, in which he soared to Jerusalem and then up into the Kingdom of God...

the flight to the city of Medina, his joyous welcome there...

and the wars—so many wars, so many friends murdered, so many foes slain, so many innocents massacred, so much fire, so much blood...

and finally, the triumphant return to Mecca, the cleansing of the sacred site of the Kaabah, the knitting together of torn Arabia under the banner of the One God.

Perhaps as he looked out across those gravestones, the old man was musing to himself, How far we’ve come.

“I can stay here for many more years,” he explained, “or I can soon leave for Paradise.”

His shocked friend sputtered, “H-have you d-decided?”

“Yes,” he replied softly, then turned and walked away into the evening mists.

A few days later, the elderly Muhammad became sick. The illness was bizarre and mysterious, like the slow withering of a flower. The diagnosis eluded even the best doctors of the day. The old man just smiled.

His friends and family took him away from Mecca, the bourgeois city of his birth and early adulthood, the illustrious holy city around which all the spiritual activity of Arabia revolved. They took him back to dirty and wretched Medina, the shit-hole which, though he publicly denied it, he could never deny in his heart had become the true fixture of his affection, his real home.

His ailment worsened until he was bed stricken. He spent most of his days inside his hut beside the city’s mosque, the simple temple he and his followers had built with their bare hands when they first arrived in Medina.

All of Arabia feigned unconcern, but even the sand-devils stopped spinning as the desert held its breath.

On the day he died, Muhammad pulled himself out of his cot and quietly made his way to the mosque door. He leaned upon the doorpost and watched the congregation pray. He always enjoyed watching his followers pray. When they had finished their rituals, the assembly noticed his presence.

The historical record does not tell us anything more about the assembly. According to his chronicler Ibn Ishaq, these were the old prophet’s words: “Don’t look at me like that. I only ever allowed what our Lord Allah allowed, and I only ever forbade what our Lord Allah forbade. You have the Law now.” And then Muhammad turned on his heels and stormed back into his hut.

A few hours later, with his friends gathered around him, his head resting in the lap of Aisha, a devoted lover and one of the many women he had married during the war with Mecca, the apostle slipped away. His final words were a whispered conversation: “O God! ... pardon my sins ... Yes, ... I come, ... among my fellow citizens on high ...”

…idhinas siratal mustaqim

No Muslim has ever dared explicate the meaning of that moment between Muhammad and the congregants. Like anyone else, they want to be told that their blessed prophet was successful and perfect in every way. Because they want to believe that they, as Muslims, are infallible and wonderful.

But they dare not consider that Muhammad may have died wondering if he was a failure.

In what manner were those Muslims in the Medina mosque looking upon him? Could it have been that their eyes were imploring him, demanding of him: You cannot go. You are the leader. Could it have been that Muhammad realized that, despite all the sacrifice and enormous struggle, in the end his precious “believers” remained, in their secret hearts, pagans?

And did he feel that the guilt for this… rested squarely upon his shoulders? The historical records tell us that Muhammad decided every facet of his followers’ lives: how they were to wage their battles, how they were to pray and give alms, even how they were to marry, sleep together, raise their children—decisions and edicts that were later gathered and codified into the laws of the Shariah.

The early Muslims’ poverty of autonomy and sincerity became explosively obvious after the prophet’s death. Muhammad hadn’t decided who among his cadre would become the next governor of the new Arabian polity. Almost immediately after his demise, the “believers” began to worship his tomb, so frightful was the prospect of having to decide for themselves what to believe, how to live.

Barely a decade passed before Muslims split between those who wanted an elite leadership, and those who desired a monarchy derived from Muhammad’s bloodline—a split which erupted into bloody civil war and assassinations, tearing open the vast chasm between Sunni (the oligarchic school) and Shia (the monarchial school) which has torn apart Islam ever since.

The Muslims’ deep deficiency has persisted in many other ways, especially in religious belief. Islam experienced a few brief centuries of “independent reasoning” [ijtihad], but statism, capitalism, corrupt taxation and foreign invasion led to a series of homegrown military coup-de-tats in the Middle Ages. These regimes rapidly feudalized Islamic domains, purged academia and seminaries of “subversives,” and enforced an ideology of "blind belief" [taqlid]. So started the long slide into spiritual darkness which culminated in the bloody rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the exploitative Saudi regime in Arabia, and the atrocities of September 11th.

History shows that the Muslim masses have been all too happy to be brutalized into serfs, paupers, fellaheen. They easily jab the finger for their decrepitude elsewhere: at the Christians, the Jews, “weak Muslims” among them, even God (masha’allah, the expression goes, It is as God wills...) Yet, a millennium of spilt tears does not just evaporate; it becomes an ocean of sorrow flooding the most hidden caverns of everyone’s souls, mingling with the burning magma of shame and self-hatred, until the pressure builds and the mountain erupts into a firestorm of suicide-bombs.

But salvation does not lie in self-annihilation. There is no escaping the face in the mirror.

As the centuries have eked by, the more despicable the Muslims’ condition, the more primary the colors their clergy have painted the image of Muhammad. Today, after generations of careful and cynical effort, they have managed to excise every tiny blemish from the prophetic character. Conceptually, Muhammad has become an automaton rather than a man of passion who strove to reconcile the great symphony of divine revelation that burst in his mind with the dirge of earthbound sin and ignorance that gnawed at his and his loved ones’ flesh and souls day after day after day. Muhammad was no longer allowed to be a man who made some good choices and some bad choices.

And so Muhammad has stopped being an inspiring symbol and has become an idol to be worshipped.

The great historian Edward Gibbon put it so well: “If he retained any vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Muhammad may be allowed as an evidence of his sincerity.” The Muslims’ persistent denial of this most essential truth has ruined Islam.

The Qur`an says of Muhammad, “He is a perfect example unto you,” and, “No other prophet shall come after him.” The time has come for Muslims to truly embrace Muhammad: to confess their wrongs and idiocies, to accept and forgive themselves, to trust themselves and to trust Providence, to open themselves to the whispers of divine Truth. They must be guided, and they must let themselves be guided, and they must be bold in their steps.

[Schwartz] א - Bukharan Jews support Karimov

Mr. J. Gajendra Singh has written a massive in-depth editorial entitled, After Non-Franchised Andijan Uprising East Closes Ranks for al-Jazeera Online. His editorial covers everything from the dusty history of Uzbekistan's Soviet era to the recent intrigues of the People's Republic of China and Afghan narco-traffickers (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!)

Mr. Singh has a curious section about Bukharan Jewish émigrés in the Big Apple:

Curiously [the] majority of [the] 40,000-strong Bukharan Jews in the New York, who immigrated in early 1990s, maintained their support for Islam Karimov. Many said that the United States should stand by Karimov, otherwise Islamists might take over the country and persecute the estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Jews still there. But they added that Karimov must allow more democracy and economic liberalization.

Rafael Nektalov, editor-in-chief of the community’s Bukharian Times, who was in Uzbekistan last week, said the Jews he met were calm and maintained staunch support for Karimov — a position he shared. “I think the U.S. must support Karimov at this moment,” he said. “Do people who call for a new regime in Uzbekistan really think those who carried out the uprising and prison break in Andijan are humanitarians who would govern democratically if they ever take power?”

But some like David and Sarah Tamayev [who moved to the USA 16 years ago from Bukhara and visited their hometown two years ago], disagreed. “We found that things were so bad economically in Bukhara that almost the entire male population of the city was away working in Russia in order to help their families survive,” “Karimov is guilty of creating a situation where people have nothing to eat. Karimov’s rule is good only for his relatives. The vast majority endure terrible poverty.” But they agreed that if Karimov falls, there might be a takeover by Islamic extremists. “Perhaps the U.S. should not try to push Karimov out, but we certainly should be pressing him to reform the system and allow democracy.” [my link inserts]

Thanks to Nathan Hamm over at The Registan for alerting me to this.

[Schwartz] ME - maghreb majnun fil-Anbar

Two high-profile kidnappings end in spilt blood...

Sheikh Muhammad al-Khaznawi (or "al-Haznawi"), a popular Syrian-Kurdish cleric, went missing three weeks ago in Damascus (May 10th). The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) condemned the abduction:

[Sheikh al-Khaznawi] enjoys a wide range of relationships within Syria on both formal and public levels, and also possesses excellent relationships on both Arab and international levels.

Sheikh al-Khaznawi is from a knowledgeable religious family and possesses an exceptional role in the enlightenment of Kurdish issues and the defence of their rights. He also played a pivotal role in calming pacifying the turbulent circumstances following the Qamishli incidents of March 2004.*

SHRC calls upon free Syrians to expose his kidnappers and ensure his safe return to his family and to his useful activities.

Sheikh al-Khaznawi has been found dead in eastern Syria three weeks after he went missing in Damascus.

* Regarding Qamishli, a Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli wrote in the March 15th, 2004 edition of Kurdistan Observer's webpage,

In today's Independent there is nothing about Qamishli carnage where Syrian Arab Baathists are indulged in killing Kurds. Reliable Kurdish sources indicate that 94 people have been killed so far in Syrian governments violent measures to quell the Kurdish uprising in Qamishly and other Syrian-occupied western Kurdistan. The great Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk must not have heard of it. And even he has, it seems he doesnt think there is any thing worth reporting or commenting about.

If you are a Syrian university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

Meanwhile in Iraq, Raja Nawaf, the kidnapped governor of the Anbar province, has been found dead along with his suspected captors after a clash with US forces. Mr. Nawaf's body was found tied to a gas canister in a house in Rawa, near the Syria border, the government said. Incidentally, Mr. Nawaf was also kidnapped on May 10th.

Reuters Online has released this interesting article, Iraq's wild west a constant thorn for U.S. troops:

When it comes to peace and stability in Iraq, there may be no greater obstacle to success than Anbar province, a vast region of desert and scrubland stretching west from Baghdad.

Of the 1,630 U.S. troops who have died since the war began, more than 500 have lost their lives in Anbar, a higher toll than in any other area of the country, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military deaths.

The province, which includes the cities of Falluja and Ramadi, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, is so dangerous that no journalists venture there unless escorted by U.S. forces. Even many Iraqis are too scared to go.

(Check out WindsOfChange.net's similarly entitled May 25th article, Back to the Wild West of Anbar Province.)

Finally, the BBC Online, quoting a CNN report, says that Saddam Hussein shall go on trial "within two months": "Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said he expects the trial of Saddam Hussein for alleged crimes against humanity to begin within two months."

If you are an Iraqi university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

[Schwartz] ME - Memorial Day weekend updates

Horatio, something is rotten in the state of Egypt...

The Egyptian people have approved constitutional changes that open the way for multi-candidate presidential elections. According to official results 83% voted in favor for the changes. 54% of total registered voters went to the polls--not a heart-stopping turn-out, it's true, and in fact too reminiscent of past American turn-outs (we're lucky to get over 45% of the electorate), but decent nonetheless. [You might enjoy this BBC Online interactive graphic, How Democratic is the Middle East?]

Six opposition parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, had called for a boycott of the referendum. They say that the amendments contain too many constraints for anyone to effectively challenge President Hosni Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has called on Egypt to investigate what it labels state-sponsored "plainclothes" (mukhbarat) police brutality against opposition demonstrators. The Human Rights Watch reports,

In Egypt, police and supporters of the ruling party attacked scores of pro-reform demonstrators and journalists yesterday, Human Rights Watch said today. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must appoint an independent judicial panel to conduct a thorough investigation into these attacks.

Yesterday in Cairo, plainclothes security agents beat demonstrators, and riot police allowed—and sometimes encouraged—mobs of Mubarak supporters to beat and sexually assault protestors and journalists.

The BBC Online quotes George Ishak, spokesman for the Kifaya opposition movement: "We were shocked when our members were beaten and dragged on the streets. Some female colleagues were subjected to humiliation of a sexual nature."

If you are an Egyptian university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

Meanwhile, in Iraq, a huge deployment of Iraqi soldiers is expected as early as next week. Iraqi Minister of Defense Saadoun ad-Dulaimi announced plans for more than 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to be deployed in Baghdad in a massive operation to hunt down insurgents. Mr. ad-Dulaimi said the capital would be split into seven areas of operation, and warned that security measures would be far more strict than had been seen before.

"We will also impose a concrete blockade around Baghdad, like a bracelet around an arm, God willing. No-one will be able to penetrate this blockade," Mr. ad-Dulaimi said. Mobile checkpoints shall also be used, the hope being that this will stop suicide bombers getting to the markets and the busy streets, where many people have been killed.

The operation may also be expanded to include other major cities.

I'm concerned. He's going to cut off Baghdad with a concrete barrier? And is he considering Mosul, Kirkuk, Sulaymeniah?

...I know it's supposed to sound like a "mop-up operation," but this is really sounding a little like the beginnings of a civil war. Think for a moment: a military occupation of Baghdad.

I don't want to be an alarmist. The perhaps Iraqis may have more success than the Americans did in Fallujah. After all, just as you would send an American to catch an American, send an Arab to catch an Arab. This time the soldiers can speak the language and understand cultural sensitivities, should know the likely hide-outs, etc.

But even if it doesn't erupt into civil war, this move could nevertheless become a bloodbath, and for several reasons. Arabs are not known for their military restraint (but then again, who is?), and the insurgents must see Baghdad as their prize. And what would happen if Mr. as-Sadr's boys get involved (again)? Finally, will this really solve the problem, or just rev up the wheel of vendetta which has spun so much, so bloodily, so pointlessly in the Middle East?

Finally, I find it funny how Mr. ad-Dulaimi's idea seems to mirror so closely the thinking of the Israel Defense Force's re-occupation of Palestinian Authority territories. Checkpoints? Concrete walls? Hmmm... Honestly, it is a vastly different situation in Iraq than in the Holy Land, but the devil in me can't help but chuckle.

Bush has pledged aid to the Palestinians--$50 million, in fact, paid directly to the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abbas is the first Palestinian leader to be hosted by Mr. Bush.

The new aid is part of a $350m package earmarked for the Palestinians. The money is supposed to go to fund housing and infrastructure projects in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the BBC Online covers HAMAS's bid for power in Palestinian society.

Meanwhile, in Iran, guess who's back? The BBC Online also has a fascinating article on Iranian-Canadians, entitled, "From Tehran to Toronto".

If you are an Iranian university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

This weekend I'll be going down to Philadelphia to be with my lovely, so I won't be making any updates until at least Tuesday, May 31st.

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Sassōn forgive me

|
te.schwartz at gmail.com

October 31st, 2004: I wasn’t supposed to be in Lūd that night.

Lūd is a terrible, desperate place. I’ve sometimes heard Palestinians from the Gaza Strip refer to it as “hell.” There are sections of the city where the houses are constructed of stapled aluminum siding and dried mud. The more civilized sections of Lūd and its sister city Ramle are fortresses. Most residents live in giant concrete blocks. The city elite (cops, politicians, and drug dealers) live in walled mansions. Lūd’s dealers pioneered “ATM drugs”: the junky walks up to a tiny slit in the wall of his or her dealer’s mansion, deposits some shekels, and out pops their heroin...

Since July I had been working in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam, the Middle East’s first and only Jewish-Arab cooperative village, situated in the war-torn Latrūn region, near Lūd. The cooperative’s Palestinian and Israeli founders dreamt of establishing, amidst the ruins of Maccabee forts and Crusader castles, rusting husks of exploded Israeli tanks and the ghosts of Palestinian villages, a sacred “Oasis of Peace.”

My boss at the cooperative granted me a four-day leave to do some travelling. I first rode northward, on Highway 6, Israel’s main road that starts in Elat, slithers along the Green Line and ends somewhere just south of Lebanon. My car passed Qalqiyah and Tulkarem. Minarets peeked out over the top edge of the Separation Wall, and tendrils of black smoke from burning tires licked the blue sky.

I spent two nights and a day in Kufr Manda, a poor farming village of Palestinian citizens of Israel located in the southern Galilee region. I made excursions to Nazareth, a dumpy city if ever I saw one, and to tiny Kufr Kana, one of the last settlements of the Shirkas. The Shirkas once administered all the Holy Land for the Ottoman Turks. Today, they sell Nike and Reebok shoes.

Friday, I hitch-hiked westward, across verdant kibbutz farms and booming Jewish towns, to the eternal Acre. I spent a day in the impoverished Old City of Acre, a granite cube of ancient history that sticks out into the Mediterannean, defying the sea. The spidery cracks and musket bullet holes in its immortal walls are a message: ‘‘What is time? Not even Napoleon could defeat me.”

The next day, I went to mountainous Haifa, the prophet Elijah’s old hang-out. I breathed in the brisk winds that whisked through the city’s steep streets and strolled the luscious Bahai gardens. Then, that night, I hopped onto the train for Latrūn.

Turned out to be the wrong train.

Several hours later, deep into the night and even deeper in the Negev desert, I sat with two security guards in the railway terminal of Beer Sheva. One guard was a newly immigrated Russian; the other, a second-generation Sepharadi. They had just finished their mandatory military service. They both served in Gaza, protecting the Israeli settlements there.

“I once saw a terrorist with a rocket,” the Russian said. “I shot him.”

“I ran over an Arab with my tank,” the Sepharadi said. “I don’t know if he was a terrorist.”

They both grinned with a savage joy. The Russian was twenty-four; the Sepharadi, twenty-one.

I hitched a ride with the train conductors, many of whom lived in and around Latrūn. Their tiny white Citreon zoomed across the dark desert, northward on Highway 6. Looking out the car window at the utter flatness of the black sands, I wondered if we were riding alongside the sea. But then the ruby glow of Gaza reminded me just how far away from everything I really was.

They dropped me off in Lūd, early in the morning. I knew the city’s reputation, and immediately set about finding a taxi to get me the hell out of there. But no driver would take me back to Neve Shalom for anything less than 80 shekels. After all my travelling, I had very little cash on hand. I was stuck... until one driver took mercy on me. He had me split the fare with another customer, a giant Sepharadi man named Sassōn.

Sassōn was really giant: as round as a granite boulder, as heavy and intimidating as a bear. He struggled to get into the taxi, so the driver and I helped him into his seat. He tried to eat a falafel he had just purchased, but the sandwich disintegrated in his hands—which were cut and bleeding. The driver and I looked at each other. We asked Sassōn what happened to his hands, but he only whimpered for his falafel. That’s when I noticed the stench: this bear of a man had soiled his sweatpants.

Minutes later, I returned to the night road. First we drove back onto Highway 6, then veered off into dark dirt paths which zig-zag throughout Latrūn’s farmland. It was sometime during cotton season. Everywhere stalks with puffy buds of cotton rustled in the midnight breeze.

The driver decided to take Sassōn to a hospital, but first the bear-man should go home and get cleaned up.

Sassōn lived in one of the many moshavs of Latrūn. Decades ago, when the State of Israel was just a newborn, waves of Middle Eastern Jews flooded the country. The world has often seen the United States as a land “where the streets are paved with gold”; for the Sepharadim, this mythic land of opportunity is Israel. But the Jewish State was created by and for Ashkenazim, European Jews. What was to be done with these dark-skinned, Arabic-speaking immigrants? The answer: concentrate them in Ramle, Lūd and Latrūn, the No Man’s Land, a region devastated by the 1948 war. Stick them in hastily built concrete huts and make them til the soil for their livelihood. Thus were born the moshavim, the Jewish shantytowns of Israel.*

Many moshavs have since clawed up from impoverishment, becoming middle class towns and suburbs. Not Sassōn’s. The houses were boxes on stilts, the road was ruined, and even the trees seemed twisted and bent from poverty.

The taxi pulled up to Sassōn’s concrete box. He stumbled out, rang the doorbell. An angry thirty- or forty-something man opened the door.

“His brother,” the driver whispered.

The man screamed at Sassōn and punched the door. Sassōn didn’t seem to notice. He quietly shuffled into the house, and the door closed. The driver and I chit-chatted for a few minutes.

“I’ve known Sassōn for many years,” he said. “He is crazy. This happen to him when he was soldier.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are many of us who get crazy. Israel takes care of them.”

“Why haven’t I ever heard about them before?”

He smirked. “They are, how do you say? They are patriots. Israel takes care of them, and in exchange, they say nothing.”

He glanced at me. “You should ask Sassōn about himself. He likes to tell his story.”

The door re-opened. Sassōn, wearing a new pair of sweatpants, shuffled out. The brother appeared behind him, arms crossed, scowling at the meek bear-man. A woman timidly peered over the brother’s shoulder. The brother, noticing her, yelled and slammed the door. Sassōn climbed back into the taxi (with our help) and we drove off.

Sassōn looked at me with two round eyes and asked in Hebrew, “Are you Jewish?”

“Half,” I answered in my broken Hebrew. “My father is Jewish.”

“You are good. Don’t let anyone tell you different because you are a Jew.” Tears welled up in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. “Do you like Israel?”

I had seen many awful things in this country. Did I like Israel? I sat back and thought about this: did I like Israel? No... Yet, I cared for Israel.

“Israel is a good place,” Sassōn said. “It is the only place where Jews can be Jews.”

And then he began to tell me about himself: “My parents were from Morocco and Iraq, but I was born here. I served in the army in 1973. I was in the Golani unit.”

His chest swelled with pride.

The driver explained in English: “He was, how do you say? He was commando.”

Sassōn continued: “I killed hundreds of Arabs. I sneak up to them with my knife and,” he ran a chubby finger across his throat. “Not only in Golan. I was in the Suez, too.”

He gazed blankly at the floor. The driver and I waited. Then: “I stopped being myself in the Golan. It was night. I was sneaking and I saw the Syrians line up a hundred Israeli boys and... shoot them all dead. I stopped being myself then.”

The taxi came to a halt. We were at the Kibbutz Nachshōn junction, where the well-lit highway met the shadowy road that snaked up an ancient hill to Neve Shalom. I could see the “Oasis of Peace,” about an hour’s walk away, atop the hill’s crest. Beside it rose the tel of al-Latrūn, upon which sat the ruins of the Crusader fortress that gave the region its name. Salahadin and Richard the Lionhearted fought there, as did Israel and Jordan a millennium later.

The hospital was too far out of my way, the driver explained. He would take Sassōn by himself. I turned to the bear-man, who smiled like a child. He extended a quivering, bloody hand to me. Between his fingers was a paper, upon which he had scrawled his name and phone number. I promised to give him a ring sometime, and then stepped out of the taxi. I then watched the taxi drive away.

I was alone. The moon was as full and bright as a newly minted shekel. Somewhere in the night, jackals howled and the radio of Bedouins broadcasted a woman’s voice. She cried out to the universe, wailing the sorrow of generations upon generations upon generations. With her wail echoing in my ear and the moon illuminating my way, I grabbed a board of wood and began the long walk back to where I had to go.

I never phoned the bear-man. I never intended to. And sometimes, when I am alone on a dark road in New York or Philadelphia or London or wherever, I find myself thinking: O Sassōn, please forgive me...

*Alot of good information on moshavim can be found here.

[Schwartz] Iraq - Mystery of the Saddam photos

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[In the interest of good taste, and out of respect for our Iraqi readers and correspondents, I shall not be re-printing the infamous photographs on this blog.*]

Yesterday the New York Post (not my favorite newspaper by far) made an interesting suggestion:

The Sun said it received the pictures from a source in the U.S. military who hoped the release of the pitiful pictures will deal a blow to the lingering Iraqi insurgency.

The Pentagon seems to be of a different opinion. Today the Post reports today,

The Pentagon yesterday launched an investigation into who photographed Saddam Hussein in his underwear at a U.S-run prison in Iraq.

The sensational snapshots of the former tyrant, published in yesterday's Post and the London Sun, violated Pentagon regulations and Geneva Convention guidelines.

*Yet, I must admit, I find the predicament of Saddam Hussein, while ironic and justified, strangely fascinating: what is it like for him to have gone from all that power to such decrepitude? to have his sons shot dead? his macabre dreams dashed? and all his might and terror stripped from him? Here we see a man who had palaces built in his honor now huddling in the cold on a plain cot.

The New York Post quotes The Sun's "defense editor," Tom Newton Dunn: "[Hussein and his accomplices] are just old men now, and seem to have acceped their day is over. They're just waiting out their fate. Most of them know that means the gallows."

Truth be told, I've always been fascinated by dictators-turned-powerless. I recall reading when I was younger about a South American dictator who, after a coup de tat, is now living out his existence somewhere in Central America. He owns a computer hardware shop and lives in the upstairs apartment. The Ben Kingsley character in the film, House of Sand and Fog, also fascinated me in the same manner (though, all the characters in that story fascinated me, and it's a great damned movie--go watch it!) The fate of the Thanos character in the graphic novel The Infinity Gauntlet also always moved me. Unlike the old South American dictator or Kingsley's character, Thanos gains a kind of serenity within himself at the end of the story.

One would hope Hussein's is a humbling experience, though by most accounts, Hussein seems himself as ultimately justified by God. Thus is the severity of his megalomania...

[Schwartz] EU - Germany urges Turkey to take responsibility for Armenian Genocide [late post]

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April 29th, 2005: Turkey edges towards Armenia ties BBC Online

April 24th, 2005: Armenians remember mass killings BBC Online

April 21st, 2005:Berlin urges Turkey to take
responsibility for massacres Expatica Online

All parties in the German parliament have agreed key points of a resolution which will tell Turkey to "take historic responsibility" for the 1915 Armenian genocide. However, they aren't using the word "genocide." The draft resolution being debated in Germany's parliament does not use the word "genocide" but rather refers to the "expulsion and massacres" of Armenians under the Ottoman Turks in 1915 as part of ceremonies marking the 90th anniversary of the killings.

[Thanks to Ben for alerting me to this article.]

In Thinking-East's Issue 3, scheduled for publication May 31st, 2005, you can read my interview with Yair Auron, the world's leading expert on the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish reaction (who also happens to be a recent resident of the Oasis of Peace.)

I don't yet know what was Turkey's response. Turkey tends to be very sensitive about this issue, and won't even like the use of the word "massacre." Whoever wrote this explanation in the Wikipedia did it very well:

Soon after the Armenian massacres, the world was well aware of the "extermination of the Armenians", which was openly discussed by Turkish government officials, and trials of Ottoman officials were held in regard to the events, after a period of quiet, a new policy of silencing and what is called as denial began. Eventually, a policy that is considered by many historians as official state denial emerged. Mention of Armenian Genocide almost anywhere in the world was met with rebukes from Turkish ambassadors, while mention of it in Turkey itself led to jail terms or worse on many occasions — often prosecuted under a law against inciting ethnic hatred.

Turkey began to spend large amounts of money on lobbying firms in Washington D.C. to counter genocide allegations, and improve its image. It also began to spend large amounts of money on endowed chairs of Turkish or Ottoman history in different U.S. universities which had conditions that the professors who were hired must be on "friendly" terms with Turkey. Some of their efforts to establish such chairs were met with student and public resistance and not all were eventually successful in being beforehand armenian counterpart establishments.

The campaign of what is called as denial has met with mixed success. Some governments, notably Turkish allies the U.S. and Israel will not officially use the word genocide to describe these events, though some government officials have used it personally. Many newspapers for a long time would not use the word genocide without disclaimers such as "alleged". A number of those policies have now been reversed so that even casting doubt on the term is against editorial policy, such as the case is with the New York Times. In recent years the number of governments recognizing the event as genocide officially has grown, despite threats of economic retaliation from Turkey. Two recent examples are France and Switzerland. Turkish entry talks with the European Union were met with a number of calls to consider the event as genocide, though it was eventually not a specific stipulation.

The most recent move by the Turkish government in this regard was for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the main opposition party Deniz Baykal to hold a press conference in March 2005 inviting Armenian historians to meet with historians from Turkey to find out what happened, and called on Armenia to open its archives. This was met with a response from the Armenian Foreign minister that the world already knew what happened, and that Armenia's archives were always open.

Turkey has never established diplomatic relations with Armenia and has closed its land borders with Armenia. Armenia has declared repeatedly it is ready for relations and an open border without preconditions but denied to withdraw its own troops from occupied Azerbeijan. Turkey claims that it would support the occupation of Nagorno-Karabagh by opening his borders.

The Wikipedia entry also has a timeline.

I'll keep you updated...

Further reading:
۞ Check out this Armenian blog.
۞ Check out the Wikipedia's entry, which notes,

There are a number of Turkish scholars who support the theses of genocide, including turkish historians Ragip Zarakolu and Ali Ertem, as well as Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay. Despite being protested strongly by some Turkish nationalists. Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish novelist, has also recently told the swiss press that he believes that a million Armenians and 30,000 kurds were killed in Turkey.

The reason why some Turkish intellectuals accept the theses of genocide, lies behind three important points. First, the fact that this organization members were criminals, and that those criminals were specifically sent to escort the Armenians, for them is enough evidences of a government criminal intention. Second, the fact that not only the Armenians living in the war zone were removed, according to them this plays against the theses of military necessity vehiculed by the Ottoman government. Thirdly, according to them, the theses of simple relocation does not make sense, because there was no dispositions taken suggesting a “resettlement,” which could mean that the government didn't expected Armenians would survive. Dr. Taner Akçam, a Turkish specialist, write about this point: “The fact that neither at the start of the deportations, nor en route, and nor at the locations, which were declared to be their initial halting places, were there any single arrangement, required for the organization of a people's migration, is sufficient proof of the existence of this plan of annihilation.”

Those Turkish intellectuals believe that 800,000 or more Armenians lost their lives during the events.

[Schwartz] USA - Ahhh fame but alas, no fortune (yet)

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"The writer who draws material from a book is like one who borrows money only to lend it." "We demand freedom of press and freedom of speech, although we have nothing to say and nothing worth printing." --Khalil Gibran

I've been busy. My well-known piece, There must be peace between symbols, was published in The Journal News, which services Westechester County in New York, on February 12th, 2005. I recently tweeked this essay and have re-submitted to the New York Times and TIKKUN Magazine. Expect this (slightly) updated version in Thinking-East's Issue 3.

A piece published currently on Thinking-East, written shortly after Yaffir Arafat's death and burial, The 21st Century Palestinian, was published in the Winter 2005 issue of The Nonviolent Change Journal.

Unrelated to the Mideast but making (a very generalized) reference to the broader "Third World" and its perspectives on America, April 7th, 2005 I had a letter published in The Journal News regarding the Terri Schiavo controversy.

Before that, on March 23rd, 2005, I presented "The 50 Years War: An American Student's Perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" for the Diplomat-in-Residence Program at La Salle University in Philadelphia. I've wanted to make more presentations, especially about my time in the Oasis of Peace and about my "Symbols" article, but personal matters have derailed me (see the bottom of this entry.)

I don't usually enjoy self-promoting so shamelessly, but Ben's done a pretty good job of logging the rest of our crew's periodic accomplishments (those off chances when we realize our delusions of grandeur...) Click on "continue reading" [also: personal news for yours truly at the bottom of this entry.]

Ben has published a 3-part behemoth of an article about the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (in German).

He also has published something in the Spirit, official publication of the School of Oriental and African Studies-- where we met, by the way (check out this other ancient blog entry.) He also had this great Thinking-East article published in the Spirit a few months back.

New to the crew is Olesya. Welcome! Expect good things from her. She is a profound and dark thinker. You really should read her discussion with Ben, The sky is so big and our lives are so small, about life in police states, as well as her uncompromising vision of Uzbek society, A very Uzbek game, a very Uzbek show.

And good news for Nathan over at the Registan. He was just interviewed by the BBC (wow!) You can find a link to the interview here.

In other news...

For those of you who don't know, a long-brewing crisis within my family finally exploded on May 9th. I have since removed myself from the old Schwartz house, where I had been staying when I returned from Israel-Palestine in February. I am currently looking for accomodations for the remainder of my time in Yonkers.

June 24th-26th, I relocate to Philadelphia, to be back in the arms of my lovely, Chon, and to begin an internship at the City Paper. All in all, I'm feeling good. I have been blessed with truly loyal friends and loved ones. I may be houseless, but I am not homeless.

I am in need of a good weekend/late weekday job to get some income (the internship is unpaid), so if you know of anything, give me a holler at te.schwartz at gmail.com (BTW many thanks to Ben for setting up this Gmail account for me, as my Thinking-East e-mailbox has been seriously malfuctional for a while due to my nomadic behaviors.)

Also, I shall soon update my huge photo-entry, Hail and Farewell, Holy Land, which currently resides in a perpetual state of "under construction" wayyy down the blog's archives.

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Oasis of Peace Spring '05 agenda

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Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam coming events for Spring 2005
by Dorit Shippin

Click on "continue reading" for the schedule. You can also click here.

General

Two NSWAS delegates tour Britain

Between May 18-25 Daoud Boulos and Ruth Schuster represented the Village at the invitation of the British Friends of NSWAS. While there, they took place in a number of important events. On Monday May 19 they were invited to speak before some 60 MPs at the House of Commons - a great honour skillfully arranged by British Friends Chair Jenny Nemko.

On May 20, they were invited to the Oxford City Council. Two city council members, Craig Simmons - a Jew and Fiyaz Mughal - a Moslem, were active in proposing a friendship link between NSWAS with Oxford. According to the Jewish Chronicle, Councillor Craig Simmons said, "There is only so much a local council can do to influence international affairs, but we felt that by proposing that Oxford twin with the village we would be highlighting what can be achieved when Arabs and Jews lay down their arms and start talking."

We hope that the friendly relations between our two cities will grow into a formal twinning.

Ruth and Daoud had many other engagements in Britain, including a meeting with the steering committee of the Quakers in Oxford, where a plan to start an Oxford chapter of the British Friends of NSWAS is being set in motion.

مدرسة السلام في واحة السلام
בית הספר לשלום בנווה שלום
School For Peace

The Doumia Sakina

The activities are themed according to three main topics:

“ Culture, society and tradition” In this program we will study our respective traditions and religions with a critical view while contemplating the values of pluralism, social justice and understanding of the “other’.

“Peace begins here” A series of meetings for activists in social change, human rights and peace. We will study and practice the art of mindfulness as taught by Zen master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh who leaves and teaches in Plum Village-France. More...

The circle of reflection on: “Truth and reconciliation” This program is presented in cooperation with the Palestinian - Israeli “Families forum”. In these seminars we will research the sociological and psychological conditions for a process of reconciliation to take place between Palestinians and Jews.
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Chronological activity list

All activities take place in NSWAS at the location designated for each:

Monday April 18 at 20:30 (municipal building conference room):

“Radical social views in the traditional Passover Haggada, contemporary haggadot and midrashim on the Exodus.”
With Rabbi Dr. Einat Ramon of the Shechter Institute
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Tuesday May 3 from 14:00 - 20:00 (White Dove Hall):

“Peace Begins Here”
Study and practice of “being peace” with Sister Jina, Abbot of Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France (the meditation centre of Thich Nhat Hanh), accompanied by dharma teacher Sister Bich Nghiem, also from Plum Village.
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Friday May 6 from 10:00-16:00 (Auditorium):

“The role of historical truth in The Palestinian - Israeli conflict”
With Muhammad Ali Taha, writer and educator, chair of the committee “commemorating the “Nakba”. Dr. Yair Boymel, dean of the history department at the Oranim Academic College of Education. The presentations will be followed by a facilitated dialogue workshop.
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Tuesday May 17 at 20:30 (White Dove Hall):

“Palestinian Liberation Theology”
With Rev. Dr. Naim Atic of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem.
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Friday June 3 from 10:00 - 14:00 (in the Club House (Moadon):

“Common destiny and the limits of identity”
With Prof. Dan Bar-On, of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev and journalist Nazir Majali.
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Friday June 10 and Friday July 10 (Moadon):

“Peace is every step”
Two days of practice in the art of “mindfulness” for activists in peace and social change.
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Wednesday July 6 from 18:00 - 22:00 (White Dove Hall):

“Truth and reconciliation”
A screening of two documentaries, one based on the Palestinian Israeli conflict, and the other on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa: “My Terrorist”, directed by Yulie Cohen Gerstel, 2002 (58 minutes) “Long Night’s Journey into Day”, directed by Producer/Director: Frances Reid, Director: Deborah Hoffmann, 2000 (94 minutes) Following the screenings we will conduct a panel and discussion.

Bulletin
London: A concert for peace in the Middle East
Tuesday 31st May 2005.
St John’s Smith Square, London SW1

London Mozart Trio

Schubert Piano Trio in E flat major D.929
Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor op.50)

Tuesday, 31st May at 7.30 pm

Tickets available from St John’s box office: 020 7222 1061

Support

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Gaza troubles

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The fragile truce in Gaza is teetering on the brink. Palestinian militants fired more qassam rockets into nearby Israeli towns. In response, Israel launched an air strike in the Strip, the first in three months. There were also gunfire exchanges between Palestinian militants and "Israeli civilians" (the American news description), i.e., settlers.

See:
Palestinians fire rockets into Israel (check out the photograph; yikes!) -- Haaretz
Israel to aim for 'restraint' in response to shelling -- al-Jazeera
Israel carries out first airstrike, in Gaza, in 3 months of truce -- New York Times

The Disengagement:
Nitzanim offer extended for one week, 430 families said interested -- Haaretz

The test has already begun -- Haaretz editorial

But when the disengagement's opponents feel that they are winning in their struggle against the police and the court authorities, when they feel they can break the law, beat police, block roads and come out of it all unharmed, they will only become more extreme, and raise the stakes. Others might understand that it is possible to get away with the murder of a prime minister or blowing up the mosques of the Temple Mount.

Three months before the disengagement, the police, courts and the other authorities must turn their policies around completely, to show us that the rule of law has not been bankrupted and will not be defeated in the upcoming fateful test.

In other news:
New Palestinian electoral law passed -- al-Jazeera

Under the new electoral law passed on Wednesday, two-thirds of the legislators would be chosen in district voting, but Abbas wants all lawmakers to be chosen from party slates.

(The Palestinian electoral system -- al-Jazeera)

Coming soon: a note on news sources.

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Israel spying: "Dog bites man"

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An excellent Haaretz readers' column regarding the AIPAC scandal. I like this American reader's comment: "Israel spies on the U.S.? Where's the story there? It's like 'Dog bites man.'" Oooo he's got chutzpah!

But he's right. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...

[Schwartz] M.E. - Women's suffrage in Kuwait

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Kuwait's parliament has granted full political rights to women yesterday. They can now vote and run for office in parliamentary and local elections for the first time in the country's history. Check out this BBC Online article, which notes,

The amendment [that changed the electoral laws] requires women voters and candidates to abide by Islamic law. Correspondents say this is an attempt by the ruling family to reassure Islamists. But it could also place restrictions on women campaigners.

The New York Times inappropriately states,

The surprise amendment to Kuwait's election law ends a decades-long struggle by women's rights campaigners for full suffrage...

Gotta love American "news"; who gave Manhattan the right to say this "ends" their struggle? There remain many constitutional and legal impediments to women's suffrage in Kuwait (don't forget: they are in a patriarchal emirate) and in the rest of the Persian Gulf (you don't think the Kuwaiti feminists are acting in isolation, without any regard for their sisters along the coastline, do you?), not to mention social and ideological resistance to their cause.

And as Susan B. Anthony, great American suffragist, would have said, suffrage is more than a right to vote, it's a state of mind. There's still a long journey ahead.

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Watcha gonna do when the cops come for you...

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Israel Lets Palestinian Police Carry Guns in Most West Bank Cities by Greg Myre. New York Times, May 16, 2005. pg. A.4

This is actually a big move. Ever since the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada five years ago, the State of Israel has been convinced (with some justification) that elements within the Palestinian security/police services also double as insurgents. The State of Israel has regarded the disarming of official Palestinian forces a serious security concern, so this is an important compromise by the Israelis. Of course, it may be part of Sharon's alleged "grand plan": creating a Palestinian non-state that polices itself, essentially maintains the Occupation for the IDF (the Guardian and Haaretz have some good articles about this; also, see the two New York Times Magazine articles I'm re-posting on this blog.)

At any rate, I'm a bit relieved by the news, because the Palestinian police have had a helluva time trying to control drug and arms traffickers in their cities. I know of an incident two years ago when Bethlehem cops cornered a terrorist with drug ties in a hotel; the terrorist's men were armed, the cops weren't--it was a bloodbath. One Palestinian officer who'd simply had enough ran back to his station and retrieved his weapon and the weapons of his friends. As he ran back to the hotel, the IDF detained him. The terrorist escaped, and alot of good cops were seriously wounded.

I'm also relieved because I have a close friend who is joining the Palestinian police. I'm no gun nut, but hey...

Click on "continue reading" for full article. The article also contains information on the latest (idiotic) maneuvers of the Israeli "Community," the homosexual rights political movement that wants to march in Jerusalem (and was idiotically opposed by the country's religious leaders. Amazing, isn't it, that the Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Sufis, Sunnis and Hasidim will spill each other's blood for *politics*, but'll unite against the rainbow flag.)

Palestinian policemen are now permitted to carry their weapons in most West Bank cities, the Israeli military said Sunday, a move that is one of the few signs of coordination between the sides in recent weeks.

The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, says that to restore order in Palestinian areas, members of his security forces must be allowed to operate normally.

Israel's security forces have been in or near Palestinian cities in the West Bank amid the fighting in recent years, and Israel had forbidden Palestinian policemen to patrol with weapons.

When the two sides agreed to a truce in February, Israel pledged to return security control to the Palestinians in five West Bank towns, Bethlehem, Jericho, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Tulkarm. The transfer has occurred in only Jericho and Tulkarm, and Israel says the process has stalled because the Palestinians have taken little or no action against armed factions.

While violence is down sharply, periodic talks on security issues have produced more recriminations than agreements. However, the Palestinians are now permitted to carry weapons on the streets in most West Bank towns, the Israeli military officials said, confirming a report in the newspaper Haaretz. The shift is based on an agreement reached in recent talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials that had not been previously announced.

Also on Sunday, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip marched to mark the 57th anniversary of the founding of Israel, a day the Palestinians call ''al nakba,'' or ''the catastrophe.''

''Our people will never forget and the generations will never forget,'' Mr. Abbas, who is visiting Japan, said in remarks broadcast on Palestinian television. ''Peace, stability and security in the Middle East can only be achieved with a just solution to our cause.''

In contrast, Israelis held public celebrations and festive barbecues across the country on Thursday as they marked Israel's independence according to the Hebrew calendar.

Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war at Israel's founding, with their descendants, total some four million, according to the United Nations. Palestinians say the refugees must be allowed to return to their land, which is now part of Israel, and cite a 1948 United Nations resolution.

But Israel says it will never permit the mass return of refugees and their descendants because it would destroy the Jewish character of Israel.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel told his cabinet ministers on Sunday to ''tone down their disputes,'' a reference to public spats.

Israel's two largest circulation newspapers had front-page articles on Sunday citing friction between the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, and his wife on one side and the ambassador to Washington, Daniel Ayalon, and his wife on the other.

The reports said Mr. Shalom's wife, Judy Nir Moses Shalom, was upset that the Israeli Embassy in Washington could not arrange a meeting for her with the pop star Madonna when she came to Israel last September.

Ms. Shalom denied the reports to Israel's Channel 2 and said they were intended to divert attention from accusations against Ann Ayalon, the wife of the ambassador.

The media reports said Ms. Ayalon was suspected of verbally abusing household employees at the ambassador's official residence in Washington. An Israeli official has been sent to Washington to investigate.

In another development, a gay rights group in Israel delayed an international gay festival set for August in Jerusalem until August 2006.

The group, Jerusalem Open House, said it was delaying the festival, WorldPride 2005, because the original date coincided with Israel's plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli pullout had been planned for July, but was recently pushed back to August.

Jerusalem Open House said it did not want to hold the festival when political tensions were expected to be running high.

Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics in Jerusalem recently denounced the festival. But organizers denied the objections had led to the delay.

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Israeli Spies & neo-Nazis, oh my!

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Analyst Charged with Disclosing Military Secrets by David Johnston and Eric Lichtbau. New York Times, May 5th, 2005: "According to a 10-page F.B.I. affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint, Mr. Franklin divulged the secret information about the potential attacks at a lunch on June 26, 2003. Officials said he was dining with two of Aipac [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]'s senior staff members. The lunch was apparently held under F.B.I. surveillance."

This is similar to a recent incident involving a possible Israeli spy with connections to the US Department of Defense, and of course the infamous Jonathon Pollard case. So much for the romantic love of nation-states. In politics, there is no honor, because everyone's a thief it seems...

(Click on "continue reading" for full NY Times article...)

Holocaust memorial today for the victims of the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps.

Meanwhile (and this is bizaarely interesting), Israeli police have arrested an Israeli soldier with neo-Nazi links. This reminds me, I really need to track down that film, The Believer, which is about a young Jewish man who becomes a neo-Nazi.

Check out this Haaretz article, "Where was God at Theresienstadt?" regarding a new operetta based upon the Terezin ghetto. Of course, I am very interested in the question about God's relationship to Man, especially during such terrible events as genocide. (More on this in future blog entries and a Thinking-East article.)

Interesting BBC Online articles:
"A peace tainted by horror."
"Who Won World War II?"

Federal agents arrested a Pentagon analyst on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally disclosing highly classified information about possible attacks on American forces in Iraq to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group.

The analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, turned himself in to the authorities on Wednesday morning in a case that has stirred unusually anxious debate in influential political circles in the capital even though it has focused on a midlevel Pentagon employee.

The inquiry has cast a cloud over the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which employed the two men who are said to have received the classified information from Mr. Franklin. The group, also known as Aipac, has close ties to senior policymakers in the Bush administration, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to appear later this month at the group's annual meeting.

The investigation has proven awkward as well for a group of conservative Republicans, who held high-level civilian jobs at the Pentagon during President Bush's first term and the buildup toward the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and who were also close to Aipac.

They were led by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary who has been named president of the World Bank. Mr. Franklin once worked in the office of one of Mr. Wolfowitz's allies, Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary for policy at the Pentagon, who has also said he is leaving the administration later this year.

According to a 10-page F.B.I. affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint, Mr. Franklin divulged the secret information about the potential attacks at a lunch on June 26, 2003. Officials said he was dining with two of Aipac's senior staff members. The lunch was apparently held under F.B.I. surveillance. Four days later, federal agents searched Mr. Franklin's office and found the document containing the information.

Later, agents found dozens of classified documents at his home. The affidavit did not describe the subject matter of the documents, but said 38 were classified Top Secret, about 37 were classified Secret and approximately eight were classified Confidential. The dates on the documents spanned more than three decades. The affidavit did not indicate whether the information that was disclosed would have placed American troops at risk, and it offered no details about the gravity of the information that might have been compromised.

Other people who have been officially briefed on the case said that while Iraq was discussed at the lunch, most of the conversation centered on Iran.

Friends of Mr. Franklin, an advocate of a tough approach to Iran, say he was worried that his views were not being given an adequate hearing at the White House. They also say he wanted Aipac to help bring more attention to his ideas.

The two Aipac employees at the lunch were not identified in the complaint, but officials said they were Steven Rosen, formerly the group's director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, formerly its senior Middle East analyst. They remain under scrutiny, officials said, and supporters of the two men said they feared that they might be charged as well.

Lawyers for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman have said the men did nothing wrong. On Wednesday, Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Mr. Rosen, said, ''Steve Rosen never solicited, received, or passed on any classified documents from Larry Franklin, and Mr. Franklin will never be able to say otherwise.'' John N. Nassikas, a lawyer for Mr. Weissman, declined to discuss the case.

For its part, Aipac has been advised by the government that the group itself is not a target of the investigation, according to a person who has been briefed on Aipac's legal strategy.

Still, the organization recently took action to distance itself from the two men. Two weeks ago, Aipac said it had dismissed Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman after months of defending them. On Wednesday, Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for the group, declined to discuss the case.

Mr. Franklin, 58, was suspended last year, as was his security clearance, but he had been rehired in recent months in a nonsensitive job. He has been employed by the Defense Department since 1979 and is a colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

He made a brief appearance on Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., and was released on $100,000 bond. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for May 27. If convicted, Mr. Franklin could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison. One of Mr. Franklin's lawyers said that he expected his client would plead not guilty.

Associates of the influential circle at the Pentagon that had been headed by Mr. Wolfowitz attributed the scrutiny of Mr. Franklin to the continuing struggle inside the administration over intelligence. They said they had been unfairly attacked by critics at the country's intelligence agencies with whom they had clashed since before the war in Iraq.

They have said other efforts to embarrass them include one last year when American officials said Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and a longtime ally of Pentagon conservatives, told Iranian intelligence officials that the United States had broken its communications codes. A federal investigation into who might have provided the information to Mr. Chalabi remained unresolved.

Friends of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman said the two men have been singled out unfairly. The friends say the men operated no differently than many corporate representatives, lobbyists and journalists in Washington who cultivate sources inside the government to barter information about competitors, personal gossip and, sometimes, classified intelligence.

But Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman had regular discussions with Israeli officials about the Middle East, and investigators have long said that they believed that the Aipac employees had veered into the area of national security, meeting with Israeli officials, including intelligence agents, although the affidavit made no mention of Israel as a recipient of any information.

The absence of any mention of Israel appears to reflect the acutely sensitive relationship between two allies with close political, military and intelligence relationships. Israel says it has banned espionage operations against the United States, but American counterintelligence officials have said that Israel still spies on the United States, looking for technological data and inside information about American thinking about the Middle East.

After Mr. Franklin's arrest, the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalon, said in an interview on Israel's Channel One that Israel had no role in the case. But American officials confirmed a report by The Associated Press report from Jerusalem on Monday that said F.B.I. agents had interviewed a former senior Israeli intelligence official, Uzi Arad, about the Franklin inquiry.

At the heart of the government's case against Mr. Franklin is the lunch he had in June at a restaurant in Arlington, Va. At the lunch, Mr. Franklin spoke of the information related to potential attacks on American forces in Iraq, the affidavit says.

The affidavit said Mr. Franklin told the two men that the information was highly classified and asked them not to ''use'' it. There is no indication that Mr. Franklin provided any documents to the two men.

The affidavit, signed by Catherine M. Hanna, a F.B.I. agent, said Mr. Franklin had engaged in other illegal acts. The complaint said he disclosed government information to an unidentified foreign official and journalists. In addition, investigators found 83 classified documents in his home in West Virginia. The documents were stored throughout the house in open and closed containers, and one was in plain view.

After the search of his office in June 2003, Mr. Franklin, according to the affidavit, admitted that he had told Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman about the classified document. He also began cooperating with the government, but he later reversed that decision. Investigators pursued espionage charges against Mr. Franklin for more than a year, but Wednesday's complaint charges him not with spying but with the lesser offense of illegal disclosure of classified information.

A senior Justice Department official, while not ruling out the possibility of future espionage charges, noted that such charges required an intent to act on behalf of a foreign power. ''That is not the case here,'' the official said. ''He was charged with the appropriate crime here, and that's the crime the investigators believe he committed.''

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Beitar Illit

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Take It to the (West) Bank by Michael Isikoff. Newsweek, May 2, 2005: "[Jack Abramoff], a legendary lobbyist particularly close to [Tom DeLay], is also a fierce supporter of Israel-'a super-Zionist,' one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff's paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors."

I have met residents of Beitar Illit; I even had dinner with one! "Tangled with their Palestinian neighbors" is a nice way of describing the genocidal ideology that established and sustains this village. My dinner mate said to me that "Germany has not suffered enough" (then waved six fingers) and that Palestinians are "dogs." We watched the BBC together. At the time the United States was invading Fallujah. As buildings burned, he pointed a finger and exclaimed joyfully, "Americans: very good soldiers!"

While Beitar Illit's residents are ultraorthodox, they are not opposed to military service; in fact, at least a few of their male residents have enlisted, such as my dinner mate. (On a side note, many residents are also American and Canadian!)

But I must stress, always always, one must never confuse a person or people's beliefs with their humanity. Click on "continue reading" for full article, a map, and more information about Beitar Illit (a vignette about life inside the settlement.) Yet, make no mistake: it is bastions of zealotry like Beitar Illit that fuel the war on and on...

Also, check out this MERIP "Barriers to Peace" article, "The Shrinking Space of Citizenship: Ethnocratic Politics in Israel."

The full article:

Money meant for the inner city went to fight the intifada. What donors to Jack Abramoff's charity didn't know.

The pitch from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was hard to resist: a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients a few years ago, was to contribute to a worthy charity he and his wife had just started up. The charity, called the Capital Athletic Foundation, was supposed to provide sports programs and teach "leadership skills" to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.

The pitch worked especially well among a group of Indian tribes who, having opened up lucrative gaming casinos, had hired Abramoff to protect their interests in Washington. In 2002 alone, records show, three Indian tribes donated nearly $1.1 million to the Capital Athletic Foundation. But now, NEWSWEEK has learned, investigators probing Abramoff's fi nances have found some of the money meant for inner-city kids went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada. More than $140,000 of foundation funds were actually sent to the Israeli West Bank where they were used by a Jewish settler to mobilize against the Palestinian uprising. Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as "security" equipment. The FBI, sources tell NEWSWEEK, is now examining these payments as part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients. The tribal donors are outraged. "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," says Henry Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation at Abramoff's urging. "The tribe would never have given money for this."

Abramoff, a legendary lobbyist particularly close to DeLay, is also a fierce supporter of Israel-"a super-Zionist," one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff's paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors. Yitzhak Pindrus, the settlement's mayor, says that several years ago the town was confronting mounting security problems. "They [the Palestinians] were throwing stones, they were throwing Molotov cocktails," Pindrus says. Abramoff's connection to the town was Schmuel Ben-Zvi, an American émigré who, the lobbyist told associates, was an old friend he knew from Los Angeles. Capital Athletic Foundation public tax records make no mention of Ben-Zvi. But they do show payments to "Kollel Ohel Tiferet" in Israel, a group for which there is no public listing and which the town's mayor said he never heard of.

Pindrus says Ben-Zvi was an outspoken proponent of beefing up security and even began organizing his own freelance patrols. "He used to bring in this equipment-night-vision goggles, telescopes," says Pindrus. At least some of the equipment appears to have come from Abramoff's law firm. An August 2002 invoice obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that $773 worth of paramilitary gearincluding sniper shooting mats and "hydration tactical tubes"-was shipped to one of Abramoff's aides at the law firm where the lobbyist then worked. Reached last week, Ben-Zvi angrily denied any knowledge of Abramoff or being involved in any efforts to obtain security gear.

The West Bank security payments are not the only foundation expenditure being eyed by investigators. The bulk of the foundation's money, about $4 million, was used for a now-defunct Orthodox Jewish school in suburban Maryland that two of Abramoff's sons attended. Buffalo says his tribe had no idea its donations were being used for this purpose, either. A spokesman for Abramoff vigorously defended all of the expenditures. Abramoff, says spokesman Andrew Blum, "is an especially strong supporter of Israel and has tried to find ways to help Israelis and others to be less susceptible to terrorist attacks." Still, the increasing attention from the news media and investigators is causing even old friends like DeLay to back away. A spokesman last week vigorously disputed that Delay had anything to do with Abramoff's charity. Although he had been scheduled to attend a planned gala fund- raiser for the foundation two years ago, DeLay never went. As for the security shipments to the West Bank, DeLay knew nothing about it, the spokesman said.

Beitar Illit mourns admired youth counselor, killed in last week's bus bomb
by Daphna Berman
Jewish Media Resources
February 6, 2004

Sitting on low chairs in a crowded room in his home in Beitar Illit, friends and family of Yechezkel (Chezi) Goldberg gathered together to remember and honor a man they described as kind, selfless, and devoted to his extended community.

Goldberg was on his way to work last Thursday when bus number 19 exploded on Jerusalem's Gaza Street. Friends say the trained counselor had scheduled therapy sessions throughout the day, and clients began to worry after he missed his first appointment at 9 A.M.

Goldberg, who immigrated from Toronto 10 years ago, was an active member in the 500-family community of Anglos in Beitar Illit. But friends say that his influence went far beyond that population. "This is a close knit community and the loss of Chezi is hard for the English speaking community," said Bradford Hauser, Goldberg's American-born neighbor. "But the people mourning here are not just English speakers."

The mourners, some of whom arrived from the U.S. and Canada, recalled a deeply religious man who was not influenced by established religious norms. "The label Haredi didn't hinder him," longtime friend and fellow Canadian Joe Halpert said. "He did things because he believed in them, not because he should have."

An active participant in Beitar Illit's two Anglo synagogues, Goldberg prayed in the community's "American shul," which was based on a typical North American model, but he frequented the synagogue of Bostoner Hassidim as well, where he served as sexton.

The former resident of Toronto was especially well known for his work with troubled Anglo youth, and was outspoken in revealing the problem to a somewhat reluctant community. A frequent contributor to Orthodox newspapers and a former radio host on the right-wing station Arutz Sheva, Goldberg, 42, was also featured in a Ministry of Absorption publication on immigrant youth. In a section entitled, "Why are Anglo Kids in Trouble: An In-depth Discussion with Chezi Goldberg," Goldberg pointed to the problems facing many ultra-Orthodox immigrant youths.

"They come from places where it is acceptable to learn in yeshiva and go to Yankees games or shoot hoops after studies," he wrote, and suddenly they find themselves in a new Israeli framework in which anything outside of strict Torah study is dismissed as frivolous.

"Chezi worked with special needs children in North America, and he realized that working with immigrant youth is an extension of that," said Avraham Guttmann, Goldberg's neighbor in Beitar Illit and former classmate from Toronto. "He understood that a child who is not comfortable in his own home is also a special [needs] child."

Beitar Illit, a settlement just 10 minutes out of Jerusalem, is known as "The Torah City in the Judean Hills." One of the poorest Jewish cities in Israel with a growing population of 26,000, it is exclusively inhabited by ultra-Orthodox, many of whom are full time yeshiva students. The city has 16,000 children, a third of whom are under the age of five, and has plans to expand to 70,000 residents.

Goldberg, who was a member of the settlement's security committee, was instrumental in lobbying for a regular bus service to and from Jerusalem. The city's English-speaking mayor, Yitzchak Pindrus, described him this week as deeply committed to the development and safety of Beitar Illit.

The community, meanwhile, has already begun fundraising for Goldberg's family - his wife Shifra and seven children, aged one to 16. The Anglo community, roughly 10 percent of the general Beitar Illit population, is hardly immune to the poverty that effects their native-Israeli neighbors, and Anglo leaders like Guttmann have already turned to communities in the U.S. and Canada to garner financial support for the fund. Friends have set up a website, complete with links to his biography, past publications, and the fund in his memory. Goldberg's house, Guttmann adds, has been crowded with friends and family all week. "The community is taking it very hard," says Guttmann. "Chezi touched a lot of people."

[Schwartz] Is/Pal - NSWAS Announcement

Reprinted from the website of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam

"השלום מתחיל כאן" סדרת מפגשים לפעילות ופעילים חברתיים,פעילי שלום וזכויות אדם. למטרת לימוד ותירגול אמנות תשומת הלב כפי שמלמד מורה הזן ופעיל השלום:טיך נהאט האן.

המפגשים יתקיימו בנוה שלום ווחאת אל סלאם: מפגש ראשון : " לגעת בשלווה" יום שלישי ה-3 במאי משעה 14:00 עד שעה 20:00 מפגש זה בהנחיית סיסטר ג’ינה -מורה בכירה מפלם וילג’ (כפר שזיף)בצרפת וביק נים נזירה ומורת דהרמה,גם היא מפלם וילג’ דמי כיסוי הוצאות: 50 ש"ח

בבקשה להביא מנה צמחונית לארוחת ערב משותפת. המפגש יהיה באנגלית עם תרגום לפי הצורך. מפגש שני ושלישי יתקיימו ב-ביוני ו- ביולי -פרטים בהמשך להרשמה ולפרטים נוספים נא לפנות לדורית:02-9996306

“السلام يبدأ هنا" سلسلة لقاءات لناشطات وناشطين اجتماعيين، نشطاء سلام ونشطاء حقوق الانسان. الهدف: تعلم والتدرب على فنون الادراك حسب تعاليم المعلم الراهب والناشط السلمي: تيخ نهات هان. تنعقد اللقاءات في واحة السلام- نيفي شالوم. لقاؤنا الأول: الثلاثاء 3.5.05 من الساعة 14:00 حتى 20:00 في قاعة الحمامة البيضاء وذلك تحت عنوان: “لمس السكينة" توجه اللقاء سيستر جينا - احدى المعلمات المتميزات في قرية البرقوق في فرنسا، حيث نستمع منها الى أسس وقواعد التدريب الروحاني والعلاقة بين " عمل السلام" و " العيش بسلام". لغة الحوار هي الانجليزية مع ترجمة في حالة الضرورة.

أما اللقاءين الثاني والثالث فسينعقدان في يومي الجمعة10.6 و 8.7 . نوافيكم بالتفاصيل لاحقاً. للتسجيل ولمزيد من التفاصيل نرجو الاتصال ب دوريت على 02-9996306

Click on "continue reading..." for English

"Peace begins here" activity at Doumia - Sakinah
Tuesday 3rd May 2005.
“Peace Begins Here” A series of meetings for social, human rights and peace activists, for learning and practising the art of mindfulness as taught by the Zen master and peace activist: Thich Nhat Hanh.

The meetings will take place in Neve Shalom Wahat al-Salam. The first meeting: “touching peace” will take place on Tuesday, May 3, between 14:00 - 20:00. this meeting will be conducted by: Sister Jina, a dharma teacher and abbot of Lower Hamlet, Plum village- France, and Sister Bich Nghiem a dharma teacher at Plum Village. The cost (for coverage of expenses) will be NIS 50 Please bring a vegetarian dish to share for dinner. The second and third meetings will take place on in June and July.

More details will be announced later. For registration and for more details please contact Dorit:02-9996306.

Schwartz - Perpetual Table of Contents

"Put me on a ship that is sinking, on a voyage to an untamed land..." --from Don't Take Your Love Away by Jon Crosby (V.A.S.T.)