My mother-in-law, who lives in Bethlehem, is unable to come and
visit us because of the travel restrictions imposed on Palestinians
wishing to enter East Jerusalem. It is ironic that an Egyptian,
Jordanian, European or American visiting Israel can travel freely
in the entire area, but people like my wife's mother can't make the
eight-kilometer journey from Bethlehem.
I have never understood why the restrictions imposed after any
suicide bombing against Israelis are called a "closure for security
reasons."
To begin with, the closure of the territories from Israel as well
as from East Jerusalem began in February 1993. Since then, anyone
wishing to cross the Green Line has needed a special permit issued
by the Israeli military authorities. What happens after any
anti-Israeli violence is that those peo¬ple with special
permits are also denied entry into Israel and Jerusalem.
Permits are given to Palestinian individuals after they go through
a rig¬orous screening process in which various criteria are
applied. Among the criteria is whether the applicant has been
jailed for political reasons, is over twenty-five, is married, and
so on. The latest version of the closure is no more than a
restriction against individuals who have already passed the very
difficult Israeli security clearance.
To justify this further restriction on movement for security
reasons is a big farce. One of the first things the Israeli
security people check out is whether the person who has committed
any act of violence had a permit. Not a single case has been
discovered in which a bombing or a stabbing was carried out by
individuals with permits issued by Israelis. No doctors, teachers,
businessmen or journalists have been involved in these activities.
No married men or women, nor people over the age of thirty have
been involved in carrying out these activities. Nevertheless, the
Israeli Government, fully conscious of these statistics, placed a
siege on top of the siege, forbidding travel for a whole sector of
the society. And this time there was little attempt to cover up the
real rea¬son. Senior Israeli officials made it clear in public
statements that the clo¬sure is meant to force the Palestinian
National Authority to take action. In other words, the movement of
Palestinians is held hostage to the action or inaction of
Palestinian officials. So my mother-in-law will have to keep
waiting till Arafat can convince the Israelis that he has uprooted
Hamas and Islamic Jihad "terror."
Donors and Donations
One of the problems facing us these days is that we are forced to
accept donations without any question. In many cases donors have
their own agenda that has little to do with what is necessary or
needed for Palestinians.
The other day, a European country presented Palestinians with an
impressive research project in the area of environment. The total
budget for the project was about $250,000. The problem was that
more than 80 percent of that sum was to go to the researchers from
that European country, whereas Palestinian participation was to be
nothing more than a token rep¬resentation. A Far Eastern
country contributed to the Palestinian National Authority three
incinerators aimed to help relieve the terrible solid waste
problem. When the incinerators arrived and the crate was opened, it
was discovered that they were more than thirty years old. The
Palestinians closed the crates and sent them back to the
sender.
Other problems arise when donor agencies decide to change or stop a
particular project for reasons that are not well understood by the
local com¬munity. A case in point is the recent decision by
the Holy Land Christian Mission to close its very successful Mt.
David Orthopedic Hospital for Children. The closure drew angry
reactions from the community and the Palestinian National
Authority, which put its hands on the Mission's prop¬erties in
the hope of forcing it to retract the decision or turn over
its
charities to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Of course the problem is not so simple. The lack of Palestinian
planning and coordination allows the various donors to speculate.
As a result, there are many duplicate projects as well as grants
that can't be put to good use by the Palestinian people.
What is lacking in this situation, as in the case of most donors,
is an authentic Palestinian participation in decision-making. Were
the Palestinians consulted, most of these problems could have been
prevented and donations would have been put to the best use.
A Shocking System
Living in an oppressive atmosphere for so long often numbs one's
sensi¬tivity. But South African journalist and TV producer
Amina Fresne, here for a television coverage training program, was
really shocked with the travel restrictions on Palestinians.
Returning to Jerusalem from Bethlehem on the third day of Id
el-Fitr, we noticed a family being turned back at the military
checkpoint. The man had a permit to enter Jerusalem, but the wife
and daughter (in their holiday best) were not allowed in. The
announce¬ment that all Palestinian women as well as men over
thirty would be allowed into Jerusalem and Israel to be with their
families had not been communicated by the Israeli military
authorities to the soldiers staffing the checkpoints. Fresne all
but got out of the car to make an issue of what she considered
reminiscent of the scandalous and dreaded pass system the people of
South Africa had so long fought against.
Daniel Gavron
People Ahead of Their Time
In a recent television interview, former Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir maintained that Israel came out of the Intifada the
winner. It was the Oslo agreement that saved the PLO, he asserted;
the organization was already in the process of disintegration. And
what would have happened otherwise, he was asked. The answer came
back with Shamir's usual self-assurance: "The Arabs would have been
totally demoralized." (Shamir did not, of course, permit himself to
use the term "Palestinians.")
Disregarding Shamir's analysis of the outcome of the Intifada, it
is clear that the former Premier felt that the total demoralization
of the Palestinians would serve Israeli interests. No doubt the
Islamic extremists who blew themselves up in Tel Aviv and Beit Lid,
taking dozens of Israelis with them, hoped to cause total
disillusionment on the Israeli side and thus ben¬efit the
Palestinian cause.
The bombers and Shamir have both got it wrong. Victory will not be
gained by demoralizing the other side. Apart from the victims
themselves, the only casualty is peace, which means that everybody
loses. The minori¬ties - Israeli and Palestinian - who believe
in peace will continue to do so no matter what happens. Ditto the
minorities on both sides who see per¬petual conflict as
inevitable, or even desirable. The ones who become
disil¬lusioned are the majorities, the ones who are not quite
sure. These majori¬ties want peace; but they are skeptical and
deeply suspicious of the other side. These are the people upon whom
peace depends. Without their sup¬port it cannot be
achieved.
The views of the Israeli majority were summed up some time ago by
retired General Avigdor Ben-Gal: "I've been in bed with the
Palestinians for over twenty-five years. I don't love them. They
don't love me. I want a divorce." More recently Sheikh Hamed
AI-Beetawi, the eminent Palestinian Muslim, declared: "The
separation should be absolute. Don't worry about our economy. Just
get out of here, so that we don't have to see you and you don't
have to see us."
It is difficult for people like ourselves, involved as we are with
joint pro¬jects, to admit that we are probably ahead of our
time; but we are. If peace had depended on us, it would have come a
long time ago; but it doesn't. It depends on the aforementioned
Israeli and Palestinian majorities: suspi¬cious, worried,
uncertain.
For this reason the most realistic basis for a solution to the
Israeli¬Palestinian tangle is to untangle it. We cannot seal
ourselves off hermeti¬cally from each other; but there has to
be a withdrawal, a functional sepa¬ration. There are of course
complications: the Palestinian economy, the Jewish settlements,
Jerusalem; but even here separation is the solution most likely to
generate majority support on both sides. Cooperation and friendship
will come later for the most part, built up brick by brick by
peo¬ple of goodwill on both sides.
A Life Devoted to Others
It is no secret that some of the Palestinians responsible for
recent attacks have lost family or friends in the conflict, or
spent time in Israeli jails. On the Israeli side, Shamir is a
Holocaust survivor, as is journalist Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, who
suggested on Israeli television that car-bombs be dis¬patched
to ten West Bank towns to avenge Palestinian bombings. However, it
is far from axiomatic that people with such scars are extremist.
There are those who rise above their personal experiences in an
inspiring manner.
In the first volume of this Journal, we published extracts from
Izzat Ghazzawi's "Point of Departure," a prison memoir that was
remarkably free of bitterness. Dr. Lotte Salzberger, who died
recently in Jerusalem, was another whose terrible experiences only
served to strengthen her liberal convictions.
Lotte, who lost her family in the Holocaust, was herself
incarcerated in the Ravensbruk concentration camp. She survived
miraculously and came to Israel after the war. She created a new
life for herself, a life often devot¬ed to others. Among other
things, she was deputy mayor of Jerusalem, the director of the Paul
Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University, a founder
of Sovlanut (Tolerance), and a leading member of the Association
for Civil Rights in Israel.
When she received the Emil Grunzweig Award for Civil Rights in
1991, the judges resolved that her work involved "a daily struggle
with the mis¬fortunes of many residents living under a
military regime, to bring their problems to the attention of the
authorities for a solution. In these matters, Ha-Moked, under the
leadership of Lotte Salzberger, is fired by the belief that the
Jewish tradition includes the basis for a just society based on the
principle of 'What is hateful to thee, do not to thy fellow: " Emil
was an Israeli peace activist killed by an Israeli rightist during
a Jerusalem demon¬stration against the Lebanon War.
I worked with Lotte at Ha-Moked, the Center for the Defense of the
Individual, an Israeli organization located in East Jerusalem,
which defends human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Concentrating on individual victims of violence and human rights
abuses, Ha-Moked has provided assistance to some 7,000 Palestinians
in the past seven years.
Ironically, Lotte's car, parked down the road from the Ha-Moked
offices, was one of those burnt by Intifada activists. Even more
ironically, the Israeli National Insurance Institute initially
denied Lotte compensation, on the grounds that she did not have a
"legitimate" reason for being in East Jerusalem when her car was
burnt. It goes without saying that the destruc¬tion of her car
did not dampen, or even slow down, Lotte's indefatigable
championship of the cause of Palestinian victims, and she remained
a very active chairperson of Ha-Moked until the day of her
death.
It was a privilege to work with Lotte, a lady in the best sense of
the word: bursting with energy and enthusiasm, always optimistic,
cheerful and friendly. An example to us all.
