Peace Is Work

So, Annapolis has come and gone and we are witnessing meetings, rocket attacks, incursions and construction projects. All the things that can trip up the peace process. What's worse is that I'm pretty sure that there are more to follow. But Israelis and Palestinians are talking. And the Saudis and the Syrians and the Europeans and the Russians as well as the US government are involved. There is a group in Gaza that wants the talks to fail. They are not part of the talks. But I believe that if the talks proceed and are substantive, the population of Gaza will be interested and the time will come to bring back a chastened third leg in the negotiations. We have to support the US Initiative. We have to support the upcoming Paris economic summit and the prospect of a meeting of the principles in Russia. As long as the two governments continue to meet and find a way to generate progress with all the assistance necessary from the Quartet and its Western allies the peace process will advance to accomplish meaningful benchmarks and change the dynamic to a new more productive frame of reference in which peace is realizable.

Larry Snider

Dr. Gold Answers Professors Walt & Meirsheimer

It's important to follow the back and forth of this discourse on the role of AIPAC in the formulation of US foreign policy. The well known professors have taken their article to book form, circa September 2007 and Dr. Dore Gold provides a well reasoned argument laying out the history of US/Israel military and diplomatic cooperation. It is a pointed challenge to last years critique by Walt/Meirsheimer. The remaining question is to what extent the special relationship between Israel and the United States has affected the peace process?

Read Dr. Gold's article, (below) and consider.....
Peace,

Larry Snider

Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance by Dore Gold

An Israeli response to the Walt-Mearsheimer claim.

On December 27, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy hosted the Foreign Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, in Palm Beach, Florida, for a heart-to-heart review of U.S.-Israel relations, Kennedy's language was unprecedented. According to a secret memorandum drafted by the attending representative of the State Department, Kennedy told his Israeli guest: "The United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to what it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs."1

According to an article prepared by two leading American political scientists, Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Professor Stephen Walt from the Kennedy School at Harvard University, which appeared in the March 2006 edition of the London Review of Books, "neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America's support for Israel." 2 The primary explanation for U.S. backing of Israel, according to these academics, is the "unmatched power of the Israel lobby." 3 Their report is not grounded in any careful investigation of declassified U.S. documents from the Departments of State or Defense, or other military or intelligence sources. Nevertheless, their thesis has now been expanded into a book entitled The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farar, Straus, and Giroux), to be released in September 2007.

What led Kennedy to declare in 1962 that the U.S.-Israel relationship was even comparable to America's alliance with the British? Since the early 1950s, the U.S. defense establishment has understood Israel's potential importance to the Western Alliance. Thus, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, assessed in 1952 that only Britain, Turkey, and Israel could help the U.S. with their air forces in the event of a Soviet attack in the Middle East. 4

Back in the early 1950s, the U.S. had a hands-off relationship with Israel as Washington focused primarily on building new Cold War alliances with the Arab states, as with the Baghdad Pact. Against whatever Israel could tangibly offer the U.S., there was always a need to politically juggle America's ties with Israel and its efforts to create strategic relations with the Arab states.
The first limited U.S. arms supply to Israel actually preceded Kennedy. During the Eisenhower years, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' plans for a Baghdad Pact collapsed with the 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, the U.S. began to upgrade its defense ties with Israel. The first direct U.S. arms sale to Israel involved 100 recoilless rifles in 1958.
Kennedy started his presidency by trying to build a new relationship with Egypt's president, Gamal Abdul Nasser. But by 1962, Nasser had intervened with large forces in Yemen, bombed Saudi border towns, and threatened to expand into the oil-producing areas of the Persian Gulf. To balance large Soviet arms sales to Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, the U.S. consented to selling Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel in 1962. When the Israel Defense Forces completely defeated the Egyptian Army in the 1967 Six-Day War, Nasser was forced to withdraw his expeditionary army from Yemen, which removed the Egyptian threat to Saudi Arabia and to the rest of the Arab oil-producers.

It was in the period of the Six-Day War that the Mediterranean Sea became a special focal point for U.S. interests in a much wider global context. Beginning in 1964, the Soviet Union started to maintain a constant naval presence with the arrival of the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron; Moscow sought airbases in the Arab states to expand its influence. President Lyndon Johnson would note: "The expanded Soviet presence in this strategic region threatened our position in Europe." 5 Soviet expansion in this area was thwarted by a combination of Israel's strength and skillful U.S. diplomacy in the years that followed.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship expanded greatly. It was President Ronald Reagan who first described Israel as a "strategic asset." In 1981, the U.S. and Israel signed their first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which was later suspended due to political differences between the two countries; strategic cooperation was then fully resumed in 1983 after the Lebanon War. Reagan initially imposed U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation on a reluctant Pentagon led by Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, who actually opposed the new relationship. But over time, its greatest advocates became middle level U.S. officers, like Admiral Jack Darby who would later become the head of U.S. submarine forces in the Pacific. They saw the practical advantages of enhanced strategic cooperation for the U.S. military.
Defense ties between the two countries mushroomed with the first visit of a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John W. Vessey, Jr., in early 1984. 6 Joint air and naval exercises between the two countries became increasingly frequent. The U.S. Marine Corps engaged in live-fire exercises and practiced beach assaults in Israel as well. 7 By 1989, Israel's Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin would reveal that the U.S. and Israel had conducted 27 or 28 combined exercises, and that U.S. Marine Corps exercises were being held at the battalion level. 8

Israeli Actions That Served U.S. Interests
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Israel had a joint strategic interest in defeating aggressors in the Middle East seeking to invade their neighbors and disrupt the status quo, especially if they had Moscow's backing. This became the essence of the U.S.-Israel alliance in the Middle East. As already noted, this issue first came to the forefront with the Egyptian intervention in the Arabian Peninsula in 1962. It would repeat itself in 1970 when Syria invaded Jordan. Given the huge U.S. military commitment in Southeast Asia at the time, it was only the mobilization of Israeli strength that provided the external backing needed to support the embattled regime of King Hussein. 9

In 1981, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, severely reducing Iraqi military strength. Ten years later, after a U.S.-led coalition had to liberate Kuwait following Iraq's occupation of that oil-producing mini-state, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney thanked Israel for its "bold and dramatic action" a decade earlier. Indeed, Cheney would add in an October 1991 address: "strategic cooperation with Israel remains a cornerstone of U.S. defense policy."

Israel had become one of the main forces obstructing the spread of Soviet military power in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1970 Israeli Phantoms downed Soviet-piloted MiG fighters over the Suez Canal, proving the ineffectiveness of the military umbrella Moscow provided its Middle Eastern clients in exchange for Soviet basing arrangements. When in the 1980s the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron made the Syrian port of Tartus its main submarine base, Israel offered Haifa to the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which had begun to provide port services for U.S. ships in 1977.

U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements in the 1980s over arms deployments in Central Europe increased the importance of NATO's flanks - including its southern flank - in the overall balance of power between the superpowers. The Eastern Mediterranean proved to be a particularly vulnerable point for NATO forces in those years because of its relative proximity to Soviet naval aviation bases in the southern USSR and in several Arab states. The Soviets had a specialized naval air arm that operated from land bases against adversarial navies, like the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This provided the wider strategic context for U.S.-Israeli cooperation.

By 1992, the number of U.S. Navy ship visits to Haifa had reached 50 per year. Admiral Carl Trost, the former Chief of Naval Operations, commented that with the end of the Cold War and the shifting American interest in power projection to the Middle East, the Sixth Fleet's need for facilities in the Eastern Mediterranean had actually increased. There were emerging threats that cemented U.S.-Israel ties. Six years later in 1998, the U.S. and Israel specifically added the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and intermediate-range missiles to their security agenda in a new U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding.

In 1985, the Reagan administration invited its NATO allies, along with South Korea, Japan, and Australia, to take part in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), in order to develop an effective defensive shield against ballistic missiles. Israel was invited as well. Eventually, Britain, Germany, and Israel emerged as the largest foreign participants in the program. 10 But only Israel developed the first land-based missile defense system in the world, utilizing the Arrow anti-missile system, whose development came out of this joint program. Today the Arrow is fully operational. Along the way, Israeli technological breakthroughs in missile defense were fully shared with the U.S., which was developing its own missile defense programs.

Still, critics nonetheless argue that U.S. support for Israel was disproportional, exceeding its actual strategic value. But as Professor A.F.K. Organski of the University of Michigan has demonstrated, during the Cold War years, U.S. aid to Israel was proportionally lower than aid to key allies in other regions: U.S. aid to West Germany was 17 times the assistance to Israel, while South Vietnam received about 10 times the aid Israel obtained. 11

Limitations on the U.S.-Israel Relationship
Do U.S. and Israeli interests sometimes diverge? During the Cold War, Israel needed U.S. security ties in order to increase its own capabilities to deal with hostile Arab states, but it did not seek to become a target of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Israel signed an MOU with the U.S. in 1981 which singled out the USSR as a joint adversary of both countries. The MOU underscored that "the parties recognize the need to enhance strategic cooperation to deter all threats from the Soviet Union to the region." 12

At the time of the 2003 Iraq War, most Israeli military leaders identified Iran as the greater threat to the Middle East, which is perhaps one of the reasons Israel stood outside the political battle in Washington over whether to invade Iraq, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Nonetheless, Israel certainly did not oppose the efforts of the U.S.-led coalition to topple Saddam Hussein, although it was recognized that a U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 could result in Iraqi retaliation against Israel, as occurred in 1991. 13

Israel itself has insisted on certain constraints in the U.S.-Israel defense relationship as a result of its firm commitment to the doctrine of self-reliance. Carl Ford, the Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Bush (41) administration, confided to a Senate caucus in October 1991: "Another limitation, of course, is the longstanding view on the part of Israel, one which I think most of us share the viewpoint on...that not one ounce of American blood should be spilled in the defense of Israel." He suggested that changes needed to be introduced to make "our operations and interactions with Israel the same as they are with Great Britain and Germany."

Detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship like to insinuate that Israel seeks to get America to fight its wars for it. The truth is completely the opposite: while U.S. forces have been stationed on the soil of Germany, South Korea, and Japan to provide for the defense of those countries in the event of an attack, Israel has always insisted on defending itself by itself. If Israel today seeks "defensible borders," this is because it wants to deploy the Israel Defense Forces and not the U.S. Army in the strategically sensitive Jordan Valley.

During the Cold War years, one of the limitations on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship was the possible reaction of the Arab states. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. Department of Defense sought facilities' access arrangements in and near the Arab states of the Persian Gulf for the newly-created Rapid Deployment Force. Overt cooperation with Israel, it was judged, would have made obtaining those agreements more difficult. (Walt and Mearsheimer incorrectly assert that the Rapid Deployment Force was established in response to the Iranian Revolution, rather than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and their greater proximity to the Straits of Hormuz.)

Thus, when the U.S. converted the Rapid Deployment Force in 1983 into a new, unified command for the Middle East, called the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), Israel was retained as the charge of the older U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) - along with Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon - and was thus separated, from the standpoint of U.S. planning, from the rest of the Middle East region. In other words, the U.S. found a way to separate its military ties with Israel from its Arab partners by managing them through completely different command structures.

Walt and Mearsheimer argue that since the U.S. did not rely on Israeli bases during the 1991 Gulf War, but rather sidelined the Jewish state from the anti-Saddam coalition, it was clear that Israel was actually a "strategic burden" to the U.S. But, as just demonstrated, U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation was not directed to Persian Gulf scenarios, which were the responsibility of USCENTCOM. U.S.-Israel defense ties were focused on the Eastern Mediterranean instead. Major General (res.) Avraham "Abrasha" Tamir, who served as the National Security Advisor to Israel's Minister of Defense in the early 1980s, has revealed that both countries were focused on Soviet military moves into Syria and Libya and an Israeli "air umbrella" to protect U.S. troop movements that would seek to counter this scenario. 14

Moreover, Israel's exclusion from the Gulf War coalition did not detract from its role as a key ally of last resort - or insurance policy - in the event that the U.S. military effort in Iraq faced unexpected opposition from Saddam Hussein's forces or from its regional supporters: Israel could have contributed emergency medical services or even air support if necessary. And there was nothing prohibiting the use of U.S. weapons stockpiles that had been pre-positioned in Israel during the 1990s for Gulf contingencies if the need arose. The fact that an asset of last resort is not used, in a particular scenario, does not detract from its value. (Indeed, the U.S. successfully relied on nuclear weapons for deterrence against the Soviet Union during the Cold War and, luckily, did not have to use them, which did not detract from their value.)

In any case, the Arab state reaction to the establishment of formal U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation in 1983 was characterized by one observer as "muted." 15 The Arab states appeared to accept U.S.-Israel defense ties as "a fact of life." 16 As a result, the U.S. eventually proved it could have strong military ties with Israel and with Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, at the same time. Still, Washington kept many aspects of U.S.-Israel military ties secret in order not to place unnecessary strains on its Arab allies.

After the Cold War
In the last few years, the U.S. has been far more ready to publicize joint military exercises, such as when the U.S. Air Force joined the Israeli Air Force in 2001 and held their first-ever joint maneuvers in the Negev involving mid-air refueling, dog fighting, and air-to-ground attacks. 17

The political context of U.S.-Israel cooperation has also evolved due to the readiness of NATO to expand ties with Israel; joint naval exercises were held in 2005 that included German, Greek, Spanish, and Turkish vessels as well. 18

Seeking to expand these multilateral defense relations, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Dr. Patrick Hardouin, stated in 2006: "The ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must not limit Israel-NATO cooperation." 19

Moreover, as Iran emerges as a mutual threat to both Israel and the Sunni Arab states, it becomes difficult for Arab leaders to argue against U.S.-Israel cooperation that might also serve their security interests as well. For example, Lebanese Hizbullah has been active in Iraq training Shiite militias that attack both coalition forces and Iraqi Sunnis. Thus, an Israeli blow to Hizbullah is in the interests of the U.S., Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
Walt and Mearsheimer do not seem aware of the evolution of attitudes in the Middle East. They are fixated on the canard that "the U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel." 20

Walt and Mearsheimer ignore the fact that al-Qaeda was not born in 1948, 1967, 1973, or in 1982 - in response to an Arab-Israeli war - but rather in 1989, following the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. Bernard Lewis and other Middle Eastern scholars have established that the Palestinian issue was, at best, a tertiary concern for Osama bin Laden, whose jihadi efforts were more focused on Chechnya, the Balkans, Kashmir, and Saudi Arabia. 21

Despite their assertions, Israel's ongoing strategic value to the U.S. today was recently underlined by the commander of USEUCOM, General Bantz J. Craddock, who told the House Armed Services Committee on March 15, 2007: "In the Middle East, Israel is the U.S.'s closest ally that consistently and directly supports our interests through security cooperation and understanding of U.S. policy in the region." He added: "Israel is a critical military partner in the difficult seam of the Middle East." 22

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones told a conference on U.S.-Israel relations on May 21, 2007, that Israeli technologies were being used by the U.S. armed forces in Iraq to protect American troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the U.S. casualties in the Iraq War. 23

Much of the Relationship Is Classified
Much of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship is classified, particularly in the area of intelligence sharing. There are two direct consequences from this situation. First, most aspects of U.S.-Israel defense ties are decided on the basis of the professional security considerations of those involved. Lobbying efforts in Congress cannot force a U.S. security agency to work with Israel.
And the intelligence cooperation between the two countries has been considerable; much of it preceded the solidification of the U.S.-Israel defense relationship in the 1980s. It was Israeli intelligence which obtained the exact text of the secret February 1956 speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, in which he denounced the past policies of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. The Israelis passed Khrushchev's address on to the CIA. 24

In August 1966, the Mossad succeeded in recruiting an Iraqi pilot who defected and flew a Soviet MiG 21 to Israel, which shared its intelligence on the new Soviet aircraft, about which little was previously known, with the U.S. The information obtained about the MiG 21 not only helped the Israeli Air Force less than a year later in the 1967 Six-Day War, but would be extremely valuable to the U.S., as well, since the MiG 21 became the workhorse of the North Vietnamese Air Force in the years ahead. Indeed, it became common practice for Israel to furnish whole Soviet weapons systems - like 122 and 130-mm artillery and a T-72 tank - to the U.S. for evaluation and testing, influencing the development of U.S. weapons systems and battlefield tactics during the Cold War. 25

The value of this intelligence for the U.S has been enormous. General George F. Keegan, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence chief, told Wolf Blitzer in 1986 that he could not have obtained the same intelligence "with five CIAs." 26 He went further: "The ability of the U.S. Air Force in particular, and the Army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any single source of intelligence, be it satellite reconnaissance, be it technology intercept, or what have you." 27

Because many elements of the U.S.-Israel security relationship are normally kept secret, it is difficult for academics, commentators, and pundits to provide a thorough net assessment of the true value of U.S.-Israel ties. Thus, Israel is left working shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S., even while finding itself caricatured by outside commentators as a worthless ally whose status is only sustained by a domestic lobby.

Israel cannot refute these claims by leaking sensitive aspects of intelligence cooperation with the U.S. to the New York Times; it might score points by doing so in American public opinion, but it would undermine the trust that the defense establishments of both countries have developed over the years.

Ask About the Saudi Lobby and U.S. Dependence on Middle East Oil
Does Israel have supporters in the U.S. that back a strong relationship between the two countries? Clearly, networks of such support exist, as they do for U.S. ties with Britain, Greece, Turkey, and India. There are also states like Saudi Arabia that have tried to tilt U.S. policy using a vast array of powerful PR firms, former diplomats, and well-connected officials. The results of those efforts have America still overly dependent on Middle Eastern oil with few energy alternatives. Given the ultimate destination of those petrodollars in recent years (the global propagation of Islamic extremism and terrorism), a serious investigation of those lobbying efforts appears to be far more appropriate than focusing on relations between the U.S. and Israel.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia is really in conflict with vital U.S. interests. Bush administration officials admit privately that of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month to fight U.S. and coalition forces, roughly half come from Saudi Arabia. 28 In August 2003, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage admitted that funds from private Saudi charities were funding insurgents in Iraq. 29 Senior officials hint that such connections continue to this day. There is a striking irony in the way that Walt and Mearsheimer complain about the influence of pro-Israel groups in Washington, and yet both academics were prepared to appear at the National Press Club in August 2006, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that has received financial support from Saudi and other foreign benefactors abroad and lobbies on behalf of various Middle Eastern causes throughout the United States. 30

Some Saudi benefactors still have very problematic connections. One of the largest Saudi charities, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), had two branches in Indonesia and the Philippines which were designated by the U.S. Treasury Department on August 3, 2006, as entities that were "bankrolling [the] Al Qaida network." 31

IIRO was not a private charity nor an NGO, but was part of the Muslim World League, that had official Saudi governmental involvement. Today, massive U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia are being proposed in Washington while the U.S. Treasury Department is complaining that the Saudis are "not holding people responsible for sending money abroad for jihad." 32

Walt and Mearsheimer did not probe Saudi influence in Washington the way they went after pro-Israel lobbying.
Those who question the U.S.-Israel relationship at this time seem to overlook changes in the global threat environment that have radically altered U.S. national security interests. During the last century, the main threats to the continental U.S. came from the European continent (World War I, World War II, and the Cold War). After 1945, Americans came to accept the long-term deployment of U.S. forces in Germany and the rest of Europe as necessary for assuring the future stability of the continent and serving the American interest in containing the spread of Soviet power.

Yet in the last two decades, Americans are finding that the strategic focal point of their military activism is increasingly in the Middle East, particularly with the pacification of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union (the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, notwithstanding). This shift from Europe to the Middle East is understandable given the fact that the main global threats to American security - al-Qaeda terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as well as missile delivery systems - now emanate from the Middle East region.

Still, many analysts are perplexed by the rising military importance of the Middle East for the U.S., and hence try to find alternative explanations. The 2003 Iraq War has made this confusion all the more acute, driving some pundits to conclude, falsely, that the only plausible explanation for the U.S. decision to remove Saddam Hussein was because of Israel. Indeed, The Economist suggested on March 17, 2007, that "The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash" affecting the standing of groups supportive of Israel in Washington. This leads to the assertion that the Bush administration launched the Iraq War in response to insidious behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts made by pro-Israel organizations in Washington. No such efforts were in fact undertaken.

Walt and Mearsheimer have joined the chorus of those blaming Israel and its supporters for the decision to launch the Iraq War: "Pressure from Israel and the lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure [emphasis added]." 33

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post has written one of the most thorough journalistic accounts of the Iraq War. He describes a "top secret" Bush administration memo entitled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy," which specifically states that one "key goal" was "to minimize disruption in international oil markets." Woodward details a conversation between Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and President Bush in which Bandar seeks to get Bush to finish off the historic step begun by his father in 1991, by getting rid of Saddam. A letter from Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was delivered at the same meeting with the same request. 34

Moreover, Richard A. Clarke, a subsequent Bush administration critic who was exposed to internal White House thinking about the Iraq War until March 2003, has concluded that most of the rationales for the decision to go to war reflected "a concern with the long-term stability of the House of Saud." 35

This Saudi angle has not been probed at all in public discourse. Blaming Israel for the Iraq War is easy and perhaps satisfies a need by some to explain away one of the most difficult military engagements that the U.S. has ever undertaken in its history, but it does not stand up to any rigorous standards of evidence that would be expected in the academic world.

Courtesy of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Notes
Author Biography:Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, 2007).

Listening- the common ground amid conflict from the Seattle Times

Listening — the common ground amid conflict
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter

Leah Green, founder and director of The Compassionate Listening Project, grew up listening to stories from her grandparents, who fled persecution in Europe.

The Israelis and Palestinians sat in a circle in a rundown room outside Bethlehem.
They had already heard from a Palestian man who was fighting to preserve his house from being demolished by the Israeli army. They listened as a Palestinian mother described how she cried as she sewed her daughter's wedding dress, knowing she would not be allowed to leave the country to attend the wedding.

But the Palestinians were having a hard time seeing how Israelis suffered in the conflict.
Then a former Israeli soldier spoke. More Israeli soldiers die from suicide than in combat, he said. Please see our suffering in that statistic, he requested.

"You could hear a pin drop," said Leah Green, facilitator for the group, which met in June. Suddenly, people realized that though the Israelis' suffering "doesn't look like the suffering of the Palestinians — it doesn't look like occupation — it was still suffering."

Such breakthrough moments are part of what Green, a resident of Indianola, Kitsap County, strives for in her work as founder and director of The Compassionate Listening Project. It brings together people on opposite sides of conflicts past and present — Israelis and Palestinians, Germans and Jews — to listen to each other's stories.

At a time when headlines from the Middle East are almost unceasingly about strife, Green, 48, presents a different vision. She believes peace can be built. And she believes the compassionate-listening process, which she helped develop, can be a valuable tool in creating that peace.

The basic premise of Compassionate Listening is that people need to listen, without judgment, to the stories of those on the "other side." They need to resist knee-jerk reactions while asking nonadversarial questions that allow them to see the other person's humanity.

It can sound touchy-feely, Green acknowledges. But she points to concrete results: For instance, an Israeli woman who went through the program plans to bring the Palestinian participants to meet with Israelis who have never met any Palestinians before.

And Green has won over some skeptics.

Rabbi Anson Laytner, executive director of the Greater Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee, initially thought her approach was "too touchy-feely and ignored the hard political reality of things."
Now he believes it's the only way to build bridges of understanding. "When you have those bridges, you have those chances to make the kind of peace that is not just paper peace, but living peace."

Green knows any big breakthrough has to come at the higher political level. But she says people on the ground need to first know there are those on the other side who acknowledge their suffering and see their needs. They need to have developed a level of trust with each other.
"If you prepare the ground, when there's a crack of an opportunity, they'll jump — make the leap of faith," Green says. "Without that, they won't make that leap."
Shared stories

One evening in early May, some 20 people met in Berlin.
Some were Holocaust survivors or the children or grandchildren of survivors. Others were descendants of German soldiers or citizens. They were there as part of The Compassionate Listening Project's Jewish-German reconciliation program.

They put photos of their relatives on a candlelit table, then told their stories.
"It was the first time I had heard a German talking about a grandparent in the same way I had talked about my grandfather. It totally brought tears to my eyes," said Phyllis Selinker, an attorney from Poulsbo, who says her time in the program helped her with longstanding fears about the Holocaust and Germany.

Green grew up with stories from her grandparents, who were refugees from the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.

It made her wonder: If everyone says they want peace, why aren't peace-making skills taught in schools? Why don't governments spend more money on peace efforts and less on war?
Those questions stayed with her as she spent two years in Israel studying at a university and living in a kibbutz, and as she earned her master's degree in public administration from the University of Washington.

She got involved in Middle East peace groups. While she felt they did important work, she also found some of them too focused on what they were against.
Then Green came across the writings of Gene Knudsen Hoffman, a Quaker peace activist who believes that at the heart of every violent act is an unhealed wound that can be healed, in part, through nonjudgmental listening. In Hoffman's writings, Green saw the underpinnings of peace-building skills that could be taught.

Over the years, Green has developed an array of programs. There are daylong workshops, advanced-training sessions, local compassionate-listening groups and people who use the techniques to resolve workplace or interpersonal conflicts. Revenue from these programs, along with grants and private donations, funds the project.

The organization is best known for its work around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to getting individual Palestinians and Israelis together to hear each other's stories, Compassionate Listening also organizes delegations of Americans who travel to the Middle East.

Larry Snider, a consultant for nonprofits who lives in suburban Philadelphia, was part of such a delegation six years ago. He was profoundly touched by a Palestinian whose son had been killed during the 2000 intifada. Yet the father urged them to keep working for peace.

The next day Snider met a Jewish couple who had built an institute to take care of developmentally disabled Israeli and Arab children. They had built it in honor of their son, who had been killed by Palestinians.

"If they could make a commitment after they lost their children, then I could make a commitment," said Snider, who is organizing Philadelphia-area imams, rabbis and Christian clergy for a Compassionate Listening trip next year.

Is it enough?
Still, there are those who wonder if listening is enough.

Ziyad Zaitoun, a Seattle engineer who is active with Voices of Palestine, says organizations like Compassionate Listening reach only a tiny percentage of the population. Most Palestinians, he said, are still suffering under occupation.

At the same time, he thinks what Green is doing is needed. "They have to bring more people together, especially high-ranking people within the leadership."
Recently, the husband of a young woman who had been seriously injured by a 2002 bomb attack at Jerusalem's Hebrew University asked Green to help him meet the family of the bomber.

In June, Green met with the bomber's family in East Jerusalem. She listened as they expressed deep sorrow that their son and brother, who as a teenager had been arrested and tortured by Israeli military, would turn to such violence.
Green says she doesn't condone the act, but believes it's important to try to understand its roots.

Both the bomber's family and the husband of the bombing victim, Green said, had expressed to her that "if perhaps both sides can get together and hear each other's realities, maybe we wouldn't get to this point where we're wounding each other."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

Time To Face Reality

With Gaza is in the hands of Hamas and Israel and the United States rushing to shore up the shaky leadership of Abu Mazen in the West Bank the one overriding question is how to actually enfranchise stability in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel? The answer is of course multifaceted, but it must begin with an infusion of authority into Fatah and its leadership in the West Bank. Salaam Fayyad is a fine man and a widely accepted administrator of the fortunes of the PNA. But the West Bank needs Marwan Barghouti to enable Abbas to gain the broad public support necessary for the changes to come in the West Bank and to retain his Presidency and the primacy of Fatah. It is up to Israel to recognize this reality and to determine to include Barghouti in the exchange for Gilad Shalit which it must pursue tirelessly with all parties until it is accomplished. If Israel wants to secure stability it will have to release Barghouti, fund Abbas, eliminate senseless checkpoints and begin to pave the long road to peace so that both parties have real and recognizable access.

Larry Snider

Let Us Pray!

It seems that the Middle East is always changing. Look away for an instant an you loose your place. Gaza is in the hands of Hamas. Fayad is the new Prime Minister. Katsav has resigned from the Israeli Presidency to be replaced by Peres. Tony Blair is the new MidEast Envoy for the Quartet. And depending on who you listen to Peace, (or at least Peace between Israel and Fatah in the West Bank) is either just over the horizon or a million miles away. Oh yeh, Barak is the new head of the Labor Party and the new Israeli Defense Minister. And the Sword of Damocles remains over Olmert's head until the final report of the Winograd Commission is made public. And on a program on MSNBC I heard a well known Republican consultant make a case for why Donald Trump should be the new US Middle East Peacemaker. The case basically went like this. Because the diplomats continue to fail and the Donald is a world class deal-maker. With Americans continuing to die in Iraq, a renewed potency for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Al Qedea on the march in Europe and the Middle East and Britain suffering under the growing threat of home grown Islamic bombers maybe it is time for new leadership. I think here in America we have to wait until November 2008 to know what comes next.
Let us pray!

OpEdNews.com: The World Says No To Israeli Occupation

Sunday began with an early morning drive into Philadelphia to catch the bus from 4722 Baltimore Avenue to DC and take part in a rally and march to end the 40 year occupation of Palestine. The program was developed by a coalition of organizations under the banner US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in coordination with a second coalition coming together with the heading United for Peace and Justice. If you think that’s a mouthful you’re right. One of the difficulties of building national support is in trying to connect hundreds of groups interested in freedom to one singular message.

The bus was full of activist from a broad group of backgrounds, Jewish, Muslim and Christian alike. I asked Jerry Taylor from Yardley, PA why he got on the bus? “Because people are suffering. I hope there is something I can do. The Palestinians are just being slaughtered. This is government-sanctioned ethnocide. Our government supports this,” he said.

I asked Marilyn Looseman, from Haverford PA, why she was taking the trip? “Because I believe in what we’re doing. Israel will be far more secure when it allows the Palestinians to be secure.” I asked what she wanted the outcome of the day to be? “More Americans understanding what the situation really is by spreading the word.”

I asked Sonia Khalil of Philadelphia why she was on the bus? “Israel and Palestine will be secure if they see the occupation is the source of the violence. Once the occupation is ended violence will be ended. There will be prosperity for both. I do believe in a two-state solution.” I asked what she wanted to be the result of the rally? “It’s good for us to go out there and share that there are Jews as well as Palestinians and Christians out there that don’t agree with the occupation.”

After a brisk walk from the bus-deck of Union Station the group made its way in front of the US Capital. There was a fenced-in quadrangle with a stage festooned with a sign; “The World Says No to Israeli Occupation.” There were some tables set up with literature and a cross-section of books, mostly by socialist authors. Around the perimeter were a few more tables including one from ICAHD-USA, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, Project Hope, a Palestinian children’s educational program and Trees for Life, an organization to support Palestinian farmers. Just about the time I was considering making a purchase a member of the Rally staff came around to inform all the sellers that they were not permitted to make any sales or take any money on the site because the permit didn’t provide for that. One better, he stopped a man from anchoring a banner on posts in the ground, stating that; “You can’t do that. If you do they’ll shut down the Rally.”

People were flowing in and I heard that there was a significant counter rally being staged by Israeli activists. I didn’t see them in any numbers so I figured the police had that rally taking place a distant site. I ambled up to the right side of the stage, filled out some paperwork and received my press pass and a folder containing information on the day’s events.

Reading from the Call to Action: “We know that occupation is wrong. We see US troops occupying Iraq, and we say no. We see Israeli troops and civilians occupying Palestinian land, and we say no again. Wrong in Iraq, wrong in Palestine.” It goes on to state that; “We in the United States have a special obligation to protest Israel’s illegal military occupation because it is our government that provides Israel with the uncritical military, economic, diplomatic, and corporate support that it needs to sustain and expand its control of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. If we do not protest, then we are complicit in the human rights abuses inflicted daily on Palestinians who are forced to live under Israel’s brutal military occupation.”

I watched as two groups were handing out signs. A red and black one said; “Justice for Palestine.” A yellow and black one from a group called answercoalition.org wanted more; “Free Palestine. Support the Right of Return.”

I met Rana Abdelquder, an eighteen year old from Poughkeepsie, NY. She told me; “My family was pushed out of Palestine in 1948. They had lived in the village of Jimzu. I went back in 1997 to see it with my own eyes. I started an organization, “Palestine: Voices of the Next Generation,” and put it on myspace.com. People around here aren’t educated enough. It’s up to us. We’re the next generation.” I asked what she wanted to happen? “At least equality today. These kids don’t have a future. To give them a chance for a future.”

I spoke with Gwen Dubois a member of the Tikkun Community from Baltimore. “As a Jew raised with the idea life comes first. That Jews are justice loving people. That the occupation is unjust. I care about Israel, but oppose the policy of its government.” I asked what she though was necessary? “Most helpful would be more of a dialog in the Jewish community in the United States.”

I met Desiree Farooz, a member of Code Pink from Arlington TX. “We are women for peace. End the occupation. Give the indigenous people of Palestine their country back. We bring some color and creativity to the movement. We are willing to sacrifice. We have women here who have sacrificed jobs on behalf of peace. Women who can’t stay at home. Can’t tolerate this bloodshed anymore.” I asked what she wanted to happen? “Arab American’s need to unite. More Palestinian American’s saying no to the occupation. More activism. A coalition of everyone to stand up to the injustice.”

I spoke with Ashley Wilkerson a young missionary from the United Methodist Church who was posted in Bethlehem for sixteen months and was now interning for the US Campaign, and serving as an Event Press Coordinator. She was listening to one of the speeches and a tear was rolling down her cheek. I asked what image she held from Bethlehem? “The Wall in Bethlehem is massive and it feels like it’s all around you. Someone in one of the refugee camps told me it’s around his heart. Every night the Israeli military came into Bethlehem and takes somebody. They broke into my room when I wasn’t there. There is no system of accountability.” I switched subjects and asked her if they had a count on the crowd? She got on her cell phone and a couple minutes later a number came back; “About 5000.” I had just guessed that number.

I have been to larger events on the mall. But speaker after speaker including Ambassador Ed Peck, Tony Bing, Judith LeBlank, Husam El-Nounou, Rabbi Jerry Milgom and Cindy and Craig Corrie and many more gave testimony to the climate of injustice that pervades the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and robs Palestinians of their right to move freely, to earn a decent living, to support their families and to look forward to the future. I believe the facts of terror, suicide bombers targeting civilians and rockets hitting S’derot on a daily basis do not bring the people of Palestine closer to achieving their goals of justice, freedom and peace. But this was a day for recognizing the injustices of the occupation and the human rights of the Palestinian people.

After a group of rappers charged up the audience, the march began from the Capital to the base of the Washington Monument facing the White House. Drums beat, the crowd chanted and people carried signs along Independence Ave. as they advanced. The police were out in numbers assisted by a large contingent of orange vested volunteers.

And then it happened. The counter demonstration was waiting for the marchers along the parade route. Hundreds of Israeli activists carried signs that went from a simple plea for peace to repudiate Hamas to the announcement that it’s all Israel’s land. Some of the people were contained and some were screaming epithets with one young man waving his middle finger. Some of the chants by the anti-occupation marchers were positive while others made me uneasy.

I noticed a couple of young people, I’d say around twenty years of age holding an Israeli flag. I stopped to talk to them. Benjamin Franblum was from Bethesda, MD. I asked what brought him here today? “I came to make sure I wasn’t one of the one’s who didn’t. I want to fight now while its words. Their leadership is inciting violence. I want all Palestinians and all Israelis to be able to raise their families in human peace and dignity.”
I suggested that that was a most laudable goal. His friend Rachel noted that the marchers are “a lot of confused people. People who need to take self-responsibility to better their lives.” I didn’t answer her by saying that that was exactly what they were doing. I thanked them both and moved back into the crowded streets before I drew a crowd of my own. We marched on toward the White House and then quickly dispersed for the long march back to the buses at Union Station. Others stayed on for Monday’s lobbying effort.

There was no violence. However, my friend from the bus, Marilyn, happened to take a pretty nasty header hurrying back to Union Station. People believed that they stood up for Palestinian rights as rights due every human being and hoped that the world takes notice.

Larry Snider 6/11/07

PM Olmert Seeks Peace in Guardian Article

My Friends,

It's rare indeed when a Prime Minister of Israel writes an article for a liberal British paper that has been ruthless in its condemnation of the actions of the State of Israel and particularly of Ehud Olmert and his government in relation to his war in Lebanon. That said, he clearly has extended a fig leaf and is trying to rescue his sinking government. Maybe he's desperate enough to do something dramatic to achieve Peace. One can hope!

Shalom,

Larry



1967: Israel cannot make peace alone

We must pursue a comprehensive solution with energy and vision, writes Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert Wednesday June 6, 2007The Guardian

Six days, 40 years ago. Looking back to the weeks preceding the war, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how desperate life seemed for Israelis, ringed by peoples whose armies pointed their weapons towards us, whose leaders daily promised the imminent destruction of our state and whose newspapers carried crude cartoons of Jews being kicked off the face of the earth. As we consecrated mass graves in expectation of the worst, we were once again people facing annihilation. We had no alternative but to defend ourselves, no strategic allies to ensure our survival. We stood alone.

Our victory in those six days in June 1967 - swift, complete and totally unexpected - showed us and the world we were not going to be wiped off the map that easily. Israel fought an unwanted war to defend her very existence, and today there are still leaders who call for Israel to be wiped off the map. But there is a danger that that will be forgotten, overtaken by a re-reading of history. Our survival in 1967 is now, in the eyes of the world and, with worrying consequences in the UK, the original sin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our opponents argue against the ongoing "occupation" as if it were the Gordian knot of the conflict. If only we were to leave the territories the conflict would end. And they threaten international isolation if we do not.

If only the conflict were so simple; if only the answer were so simple. Over the last 15 years, successive Israeli governments have initiated talks with the Palestinians in every conceivable permutation in an attempt to reach a settlement. In the 1990s, Israel withdrew from all the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, handing its affairs over to a Palestinian Authority. Nearly two years ago, Israel withdrew its troops and civilians from Gaza, with no preconditions. Last year my Kadima party came to power on an agenda promising further withdrawals. In the face of concessions that have threatened our own domestic consensus, the constant refrain has been the Palestinian refusal to end its violent attacks on our citizens.

Palestinian violence is not a response to the capture of the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian nationalism's roots are not so shallow. From the emergence of the Zionist movement over 100 years ago, Arabs have opposed our claim to independence on our historic homeland, often violently. Our conflict is not territorial, it is national.

The only way we can resolve the conflict is by establishing secure and recognised boundaries for the peoples of the region. It was on that basis we were able to conclude a peace treaty with Egypt, exchanging land for a peace that has endured for nearly 30 years. We did the same with Jordan. It is on the same basis that we will, I hope, be able to resolve our conflict with the Palestinians, with two peoples living in two states. Jerusalem, our eternal capital, can then be a city that represents peace rather than discord, a city for all its residents that does not distinguish between race, religion or class. Those are the principles that I myself implemented as mayor of the city for 10 years.
As a young politician I voted against the return of Sinai and peace with Egypt. I was mistaken. We will not hesitate to take bold initiatives to advance peace, even if they require heavy concessions. The legacies of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, stand as an inspiration for all who work for peace.

We need such political maturity from our Palestinian partners now if they are to stop the internecine fighting that is tearing apart their society, exposing our citizens to a daily barrage of deadly rocketfire and preventing any progress on peace talks. Israel will not tolerate violence against its citizens, and my government will act decisively to protect them. But I also know that we will not resolve the crisis through military means alone. I will continue to meet Mahmoud Abbas, and discuss ways in which the Palestinian Authority can fight against lawlessness and extremism, and urge him to control the violence emanating from Gaza.

In the wider Arab world, there is ever greater recognition that Israel will not disappear from the map. I take the offer of full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner. Working with our Jordanian and Egyptian partners, and hopefully other Arab states, we must pursue a comprehensive peace with energy and vision. I look forward to being able to discuss this with our other neighbours. But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum.

Israel is prepared to make painful concessions to pay the price for a lasting and just peace that will allow the people of the Middle East to live in dignity and security. But as strong and resourceful as Israelis are, we cannot make peace alone.

A Merger to put Meat on the Bones of the American Jewish Peace Movement

My Friends,

People like me and many many others have been talking for years about creating one large semi-powerful American Jewish Peace Organization to stand up to the right, to AIPAC and gain some prominence in the halls of Congress. It's one of those self-evident facts that somehow nobody ever acts on, like two states for two peoples. When you listen to Democratic candidates like Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama gesticulate before the minyons of AIPAC and then realize that the organization has built a secure 400 vote mega-majority in Congress you have some idea of how easy it is for Goliath to win against a collection of peace groups together adding up to one very weak David and often stepping on each others toes in the bargain. So maybe three groups can equal one organization and one organization can put some meat on the bones of the Jewish peace movement. [My apology to vegetarians]. See the following article from the Forward.

Blessings,

Larry


THE FORWARD: Dovish Groups Mull Mega-Merger In Bid To Build Peace Powerhouse
Nathan Guttman Wed. May 30, 2007

Washington — Merger talks are heating up among three leading dovish Israel advocacy groups in a development that proponents hope will produce a new mega-organization with greater political clout and more money to push for a two-state solution.
Leaders of Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom are weighing the idea and are expected to reach a decision by the fall. The discussions are being held within each of the groups and between leaders of the three organizations, under the auspices of several Washington-based activists who are promoting the idea of a pro-peace Jewish lobby.

The idea of forming a joint left-leaning entity — that some portray as a dovish counter to the existing pro-Israel lobby — has been bouncing around for six months and was initially seen as being backed by billionaire George Soros. At this point, according to organizers, Soros is out, but the talks have reached the final stages with at least two options on the table.

Some liberal observers are hoping that a new joint entity could emerge as a counter to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby that doves have accused of working against efforts to convince the White House to do more to advance Israeli-Palestinian talks. Organizers of the new initiative are publicly dismissing any talk of weakening or competing against Aipac; at the same time, they insist that the goal is to create a new voice for American Jews.

“This is about creating something new, big and bold,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, a main proponent of the current merger talks. A former Clinton administration aide, Ben-Ami is now a senior executive at Fenton Communications.

Proponents of the merger aim to raise $10 million — double the combined annual budgets of the three organizations — to help launch the new initiative. Part of the money would come from contributors who already back the three existing groups, but most of the $10 million — if the goal is reached — is expected to come from donors who currently do not give to Jewish organizations or to other pro-Israel groups. Among the potential donors being targeted are Jewish figures in Hollywood, as well as young liberal Jewish philanthropists who currently focus their giving on non-Jewish causes Soros attended only one of the first meetings about the initiative, but he eventually dropped out. Other activists and donors have continued pushing the idea forward.

In addition to Ben-Ami, the list of organizers includes Daniel Levy, one-time adviser to then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, and Jim Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who is active in pro-peace organizations.

According to sources familiar with the talks, the organizations are being asked to choose between two options: instituting a formal merger that would create a joint pro-peace organization under which the three existing groups would continue to operate, or creating a separate new body that would raise funds independently and provide financial assistance and backing to projects directed by the existing groups.

Originally, Jewish activists behind the new initiative had planned to come up with an agreed structure and a strong commitment for financial backing by this summer, but difficulties in fundraising, and drawn-out discussions within the groups, forced a postponement of the target date for launching the new project.

“Jews like to talk; it takes time,” an official close to the negotiations said. After initially discussing the idea in small forums, it was recently brought to larger circles within the leadership of all three groups. The first meeting took place Tuesday between IPF and APN leaders, without the presence of the initiative’s outside organizers. The two groups discussed not only the prospects of the new initiative but also the question of whether it should include a grass-roots organization such as Brit Tzedek. Many of those involved in the new initiative are remaining tight-lipped and have asked their members to keep the negotiations away from the public eye. When asked about the talks, officials with all three groups refused to discuss details.

David Elcott, IPF’s executive director, said that “the groups are talking with each other, and that is a good thing.” Diane Cantor, executive director of Brit Tzedek, called the situation “fluid” and said that “it is encouraging to see there is such willingness to work together.” Ori Nir, APN’s spokesman and the Forward’s former Washington correspondent, said that “APN is taking part in talks about the new initiative with the hope that these discussions will lead to positive results.”

Despite the general reluctance to delve into details, some officials and lay leaders involved in the project provided the Forward with Iinformation on the proposed structure and the obstacles that the initiative is facing.

According to sources close to the talks, the new organization would tap the specific expertise of each of the member groups: Brit Tzedek would continue to coordinate its grass-roots operation, IPF would focus on formulating policy proposals and APN would lead the lobbying efforts. The division of responsibilities would not be rigid, and APN and IPF are expected to overlap on policy and advocacy work. Each group would maintain its fundraising operations, with the money raised by the joint project added on to their respective budgets. Discussions have yet to focus on the structure of the proposed entity’s joint leadership and its process for hiring staffers and staking out positions.

Currently, the three groups raise about $5 million a year for their work in America. APN’s budget nears $3 million, but a third of the money is sent to the Israeli organization Peace Now; IPF raises $2 million, and Brit Tzedek $1 million. Ideologically, all three groups agree on the need to strengthen Israel through promoting the peace process. They all call for stepped-up American diplomatic efforts on this front. Still, differences exist. APN, for example, focues a more resources and monitoring and criticizing Israeli settlement policy.

Sources close to the initiative say IPF now seems to be the group most reluctant to move forward with the merger. These sources say that IPF, with the largest staff of the three groups, worries that it could lose some of its power by joining a larger framework. For APN, one of the main problems would be the question of how to maintain ties with its Israeli mother ship, Peace Now. And for Brit Tzedek, a significant issue would be maintaining the group’s identity when joining with two older and more established organizations.

Some participants are also wondering whether a unified structure would end up weakening the influence of the organizations involved. “Is one voice better than many voices?” asked one of the activists involved, pointing to the fact that one joint group might be less visible on Capitol Hill than several smaller ones.

The new project has yet to be given a formal name. Those involved refer to it in jest as the “J Street Project.” This is a Washington insider’s joke referencing the fact that there is no J in the city’s alphabetical street grid, and playing off the name of the Republican plan to change the political face of the lobbying industry that is situated on K Street.

This joke also underscores the skepticism with which the new initiative is met by many in the Jewish community, including some of the activists involved in the project. The time that has passed since the initiative was first introduced; the lengthy deliberations within the participating groups, and the difficulty in raising the core sum needed to launch the project, all have fed this sense of skepticism about the project’s future. One reason for the delays is the fact that talks with donors were practically put on hold until the three groups are able to come to a decision on the proposed merger.

The project got off to a difficult start after being initially portrayed as a challenge to Aipac. Ever since, those involved in the initiative make it a point not to talk about Aipac. They also avoid positioning themselves as a counterweight to what is seen as the hawkish pro-Israel lobby.

Yet in private conversations, the issue of serving as a dovish balance to Aipac is discussed frequently. One activist involved in the initiative spoke of the need to send Congress a message that “there are other voices in the community” and that lawmakers “don’t have to automatically support unnecessary resolutions” about Israel. Another activist said that many in the Jewish community “are dying” to present an alternative to Aipac on issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. At the same time, all those involved stressed their strong appreciation for Aipac’s role in supporting and strengthening Israel. They made clear that the new group — if and when created — would not aim to challenge or replace Aipac as the leading pro-Israel lobby.
Wed. May 30, 2007

From S'derot

Posted by: "judybalint" JudyB14868@aol.com judybalint
Mon May 21, 2007 1:41 pm (PST)

From Masha Rifkin,Sderot, courtesy of www.shorashim. comHow can I begin to describe the experience I went through yesterday?How can you capture the shaking ground, the unbearable noise of theimpact, the tears, the screaming, the mothers in hysterics -- how canyou, the reader, feel what I felt, see what I saw -- just by readingthese words? I ask you, leave your homes, your offices, yourclassrooms -- and step into this world for a moment, into Sderot.It was a type of scream I couldn't recognize, half laughter, halfterror, complete madness.

The first 'TSEVA ADOM'(Red Alert) alarm went off as I was across thestreet from my office, borrowing a friend's computer on the fourthfloor of an apartment building. Like usual, we stepped into thecorridor -- the safest place in the house -- and waited. 15? 14? 13? Ihad gotten to twelve when I heard the screaming. A type of scream Icouldn't recognize, half laughter, half terror, complete madness. 11?10? it fell. Maybe a block away at most. Everyone in the apartmentraced outside, and it wasn't until 30 seconds later -- when I wokefrom my daze - that I realized the screaming hadn't stopped. I wasabout to step outside to join the rest when, 'TSEVA ADOM'. Again. 15?14? I had barely reached 13 when it crashed, shaking my entire body --half a block away.How often have you read about Sderot's 'anxiety victims'? What do youpicture -- heightened blood pressure, breathing at a faster pace? No-- it is this woman's body, convulsing, flailing. It is her inabilityto think or move rationally -- to protect her child.

My phone rang: it was my boss Natasha, telling me to immediately comeback to the office, as the fourth floor of any building was not safe.I grabbed my roommate Jackie who had come with me for the day, curiousabout my work in Sderot, and together we ran back across the street,as quickly as we could -- into the office. Natasha looked us over,then asked if we had heard the scream. She explained that a youngmother was pushing her child in a stroller, when the first 'tsevaadom' alarm went off. Rationally speaking, she would have had enoughtime to pick up her child and rush with him into a nearby basement.But instead, she toppled over the stroller, child inside, and herselffell to the ground -- screaming. She did not cease until Natasha andthe others who ran out of the apartment lifted her and her child, andcarried her into a neighbor's apartment. How often have you read aboutSderot's 'anxiety victims'? What do you picture -- heightened bloodpressure, breathing at a faster pace? No -- it is this woman's body,convulsing, flailing. It is her inability to think or move rationally-- to protect her child. She was only able to collapse, hitting theground, as if the tremor of her beating fists would keep away the Qassam.

Natasha, Jackie, and I sat in the office -- trying to keep working.That's what you do in Sderot. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. We didn't getthrough much as every few minutes we would get phone calls fromhysterical parents. It was 7 o'clock, parents were still at work --their children alone at home. All I could hear was Natasha screaming,"Calm down? CALM DOWN. LISTEN TO ME, BREATHE! I WON'T TALK TO YOU UNTIL YOU BREATHE. Listen, your children are fine. No, I don't knowwhy they're not picking up the phone. They probably ran downstairs. I SAID CALM DOWN." Every few minutes another parent would call, havingheard that a Qassam fell by their home -- unable to reach their children. She was reliving it at that very moment -- the sound that killed herhusbandIt was at this moment that Purim Yakobov walked in -- a mother of oneof my children. I will be taking her son to a summer camp in thestates this June, and we had set up this meeting the previous week sothat she would be able to ask all of her questions. She walked, amidstthe rainfall of Qassams, to keep the meeting. There she was, stilldressed in black -- still mourning her husband -- who died 6 monthsago from a qassam attack. She lowered herself slowly onto a chair, herface absolutely white. She was reliving it at that very moment -- thesound that killed her husband. She took my hands, and pleaded with me,"Please," she said, "I have nothing. I have no one. My sons are everything. Promise me he will be happy. I need to hear it from you,please, they are all I have". Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Jackie-- even amidst the stress of dealing with her first Qassams, threw her arms around her. Purim left, and shortly after, 'TSEVA ADOM'.

We raninto the corridor, there were many of us now -- as the studentvolunteers were holding a meeting. I tried to count down from 15again, but was interrupted by one of the students. She was laughing."Hamas and Fatah finally made up, and in celebration, they're firing anice salute to us!" she said. We all burst out into fits of painfullaughter? BOOM. The laughter abruptly stopped, and someone spoke whatwas on all of our minds, "That one was really close".Hyperventilating, choking on her tears, her screams, yelling for hermotherAgain I heard screaming; I looked around quickly and realized thatNatasha was not there. Suddenly I heard her voice, "MASHA, WATER! HURRY!" I ran outside and found a circle of women, Natasha at thecenter, trying to console a young girl. Another 'anxiety victim'.Hyperventilating, choking on her tears, her screams, yelling for hermother over and over again. Natasha quickly poured cold water on thegirls face, and put her arms around her. The girl buried her face in Natasha's neck, clawing her fingers into her back, her shoulders,leaving deep scratches all across body. Eventually her breathing returned to normal; we seemed to be all breathing together, getting lost in the few moments of calm, when 'TSEVA ADOM, TSEVA ADOM'. The girl fell to the ground screaming, 'NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

'I had to hold my breath to keep from gasping when I saw his bleeding eyesA half hour later, two reporters from Tel Aviv arrived. They askedNatasha if she could take them to the places that were hit by Qassams.I asked to go along, and we shortly arrived to the first location -- ahouse which was hit directly. I followed the gaze of the crowds ofpeople outside, and saw that the qassam had completely demolished oneside of the house. A man emerged from inside, and we all rushed overto him. I was surprised by how calm he was, until someone shown alight over his face. I had to hold my breath to keep from gasping whenI saw his bleeding eyes. Or, what I thought was bleeding -- red weltshad formed across them, he seemed unable to focus on anything. Hestared at nothing for a few moments, and then said seemingly to no one-- "If you hear tseva adom, you can go here" and pointed, withoutaverting his blank gaze, to a small cement wall behind him. We were eventually able to gently coax some answers out of him. It was not his house, it was his sister's. "She was standing in the kitchen" he paused "her body was completely torn by shrapnels? I don't know how she is." Natasha probed further about the children. "Three of them were in the basement -- baruch hashem -- but the fourth, I think hemay have been with her. The ambulance took them both away - I don'tknow how they are," he repeated. Another man pulled me aside to showme where a woman had been standing, only a few meters from the house. She had witnessed the entire scene, and had collapsed in shock. He then pointed to a truck parked nearby, with a large hole in the backwindshield where a shrapnel had flown through. The shrapnel had missedthe woman's face by mere centimeters.

The next location was in an apartment complex which houses mostly invalids, senior citizens, and single mothers. The qassam felldirectly into the center of the complex. We came across a manstanding, staring at the damage. He showed how a shrapnel had flownthrough his window and into his apartment. "My neighbor? she was justwatching T.V? a shrapnel went through her wall and into her eye."Location after location, gruesome story after gruesome story, 'tsevaadom' after 'tseva adom', boom after boom. It felt endless.

Later that night, Jackie and I drove back to Tel Aviv with the two reporters, amidst 'TSEVA ADOMS' and the sound of qassams crashingnearby. In the car, we wondered what our friends were doing back inthe States -- studying for finals, or perhaps celebrating theircompletion. We were trying to avoid missiles - funny. Back in TelAviv, we were unable to go up to our room. We were too heavy withguilt knowing that merely an hour away, people were suffering withouthelp. We decided to take a walk, and soon after, a nearby constructionsite made a noise all too similar to the qassams.

Jackie ran to a busstop nearby, and screamed, crying, pounding her fists against the walls:"I'M JUST SO ANGRY! PEOPLE ARE DYING, SUFFERING, AND EVERYONE IS SOSILENT! WE'RE AN HOUR AWAY, AND NO ONE CARES! WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOINGANYTHING, WHEN THEY CAN DO SO MUCH?"

As I write this, Qassams are falling in Sderot. Children are screaming, mothers are collapsing in despair, doctors are pulling pieces of shrapnel out of the bodies of Jewish people, and you arer eading this article out of the comfort of your home. From Masha Rifkin, Sderot

Gaza Trickles Down to Chaos

It is unfortunate that the two parties of what was the short lived Palestinian Unity Government created in Mecca are engaged in the beginning of a civil war in Gaza and that one, Hamas, is also fully engaged in forcibly inviting in its Israel enemy. As Israel continues to fire missiles into Gaza at Hamas strongholds it inches closer to the full out ground offensive that Hamas and its Iranian backers so desperately want. Meanwhile a women driving a car in S'derot is killed by a qassam rocket with more coming each day. Israeli soldiers will be executed in the streets of Gaza in a guerrilla war and will be forced to take large and ugly measures to regain military control of the territory that it unilaterally disengaged from. All of this seems increasingly inevitable unless someone acts to stop the madness. I pray the US, EU, Arab League and UN can create a peacekeeping mission that will be strong enough, (including Egyptians and other neighbors), to be respected by Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Larry Snider

Death Inside & Outside Gaza

Hamas and Fatah are fighting for control of Gaza. The number of dead and wounded is mounting. And the number of Quasam rockets fired into the Negev is mounting too and with it Israeli injuries. In response, Israel is firing air strikes at Hamas strongholds in Gaza and considering a major ground offensive. As an alternative Foreign Minister Livni told the EU that Israel would support the utilization of an international peacekeeping force if it had the authority to go after Hamas. Something better happen before a bloodbath ensues.

Larry Snider

Gaza is Even More Toxic

Back in the fall I wrote an article about the deteriorating situation in Gaza in the aftermath of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, Operation Summer Rain, the destruction of the electric transformer, weapons smuggling from Egypt and the continued firing of rockets into southern Israel and particularly into S'derot and even Ashkelon. Since that time a Palestinian Unity government was formed. However, fighting in Gaza has intensified between Hamas and Fatah factions. Rockets are launched with increasing frequency from Gaza and caused twenty injuries on Tuesday. The people of Gaza have little food, limited mobility and very high unemployment. It is likely that a much greater disaster will follow unless there is some action to eliminate the fighting in Gaza, to eliminate the rocket fire from Gaza, and to enable the feuding Palestinians to look beyond the parties directly at the grave needs of their people. As for Israel, it is bathing in scandal and charges of gross ineptitude affixed firmly to the Prime Minister and his Defense Minister for the disastrous conduct of the Lebanon War by Olmert's own hand picked Winograd Commission. It is a very dangerous time!

Larry Snider

Just a Note

So many things happening in Israel/Palestine. Movement towards the next Israeli government. Rockets still flying from Gaza into the Negev and the city of S'derot. Terrible conflict in Gaza with Gilad Shalit still held prisoner and and Alan Johnson the British journalist still being held. Hezbollah is rearming in southern Lebanon. Iran is hell bent on developing a nuclear weapon to blackmail the entire Middle East. The US is still losing in Iraq. And a bad impersonation of Mickey Mouse is still appearing on Hamas TV telling all the children to be ready to eliminate Israel. Not a good report

Larry

A Destructive Policy of Chicken and Egg

Right now Israel is in the grip of political turmoil. The Winograd Commission says the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister were directly and overwhelmingly at fault for the bungled Lebanon campaign. The public has responded by expressing its outrage with 200,000 calling for the resignations of Olmert and Peretz loudly in Rabin Square. Liberal MK Paz-Pines is setting up a tent in front of the Prime Ministers residence that he will live in until the PM resigns. Foreign Ministr Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to replace Olmert has called for his resignation. While Olmert may be accused of military naivety he is a professional politician fighting hard in the trenches for his political life. Rockets flew again yesterday from Gaza to S'derot, this time damaging a house. The US government suggests that if the Palestinians stop firing rockets the Israelis will eliminate a number of their hundreds of checkpoints and make travel by Palestinians easier. Hamas military chief, Khaled Mashaal told Al Jazeera TV; "I swear it's a joke ... the equation has now become: dismantling the checkpoints, in exchange for (giving up) resistance," he said. "This has become the Palestinian cause." And the IDF killed three members of the Islamic Jihad group in Jenin. A Palestinian government spokesman called the killings an escalation while Islamic Jihad vowed revenge. You would think that somebody would learn that this unending game of hit and be hit only promises more death and less peace.

Shalom-Salaam-Peace,
Larry

Winograd

Tonight close to 200,000 Israelis from the left, right and center showed up in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to demand the resignations of Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz over their conduct of last summers War in Lebanon. The interum Winograd Commission report, (remember the Commission was set up by Ehud Olmert, not independantly), on Monday was a scathing indictment of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz's conduct of the war. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called for the Prime Minister's resignation yesterday. And yesterday 26 0f the 29 members of Olmerts Kadima Party came out in favor of Olmert's continuance. I don't believe Olmert will last until the final report is issued in July. Peretz will be confronted in a Labor Party election by Barak and Aylon later this month. And former Chief of Staff Halutz is already long gone. The Kadima party members are so scared that Netanyahu may sneak back into power that they are all supporting Olmert. Go to www.harretz.com to get the full story.

Peace,

Larry Snider

Welcome

It's May 2, 2007 and I'm writing my first post on SHALOMSALAAMPEACE.
I've been busy for the past 10 years studying the Israeli/Palestinian War of Attrition. I've traveled to Israel and the West Bank three times and spoken with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, peace activists, rabbis, imams, priests and one very special nun who's living right now in the Old City. I've spoken to lots of people too. People in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and here in the States. I've put together programs to bring together an Israeli Consul General and the Deputy Director of the PLO, to initiate interfaith dialogue and to help raise money for a school for peace, the Hope Flowers School, and an organization to rebuild homes that have been destroyed, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. My travels included participation as a member of a Compassionate Listening Delegation and as Lay Leader of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation's 2002 Mission to Israel. Before this intro becomes too long to bear I'd like to welcome you to my blog, where you will find articles and other documents of interest related to the cause of Middle East Peace. I hope you find SHALOMSALAAMPEACE to be interesting, informative and important enough to send me your comments. At this point I've written more than twenty articles and presented about twenty speeches on components of the conflict and the path to understanding and lasting peace. So I'm just warming up!

Blessings to you.