----- Original Message ----- From: <davidmcr at aol.com> To: <Awaskow at aol.com>; <asdnet at igc.topica.com>; <socialistsunmoderated at debs.pinko.net>; <SP-campaign at egroups.com> Cc: <Enbee77 at aol.com> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 6:08 PM Subject: [ASDnet] Should Peace Movements Criticize Terrorism??
Just a note to say I agree with Art Waskow's position on this. David McReynolds
<< Subj: [SC1] Should Peace Movements Criticize Terrorism??
Date: 6/3/01 10:48:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: awaskow at aol.com (R. Arthur Waskow)
Reply-to: awaskow at aol.com
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Dear Friends,
For the last several months, there has been an important debate going on in
semi-private among various organizers of the emerging and rebirthing
movements, Jewish and otherwise, for a just peace in the Middle East..
The debate has included disagreement over whether those movements should
criticize the violence that is being used by some Palestinians, including
terrorist attacks on unarmed civilians, as well as criticizing the violence
inherent in the Israeli occupation of the proto-Palestine of the West Bank,
Gaza, and the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.
In the wake of the Tel Aviv terrorist bombing, and as we are on the verge of
the June 8 world-wide vigils against the occupation, I think this debate
needs to be public.
My own position (and that of Break the Silence, as expressed in one of the
points of our OLIVE TREES FOR PEACE statement) is that a movement for peace
and justice needs to criticize violence by Palestinians, especially
terrorism, and to urge all Palestinians to heed those Palestinian voices that
are calling for the use of vigorous nonviolent resistance to the occupation,
instead of violence.
Before explaining my own views, let me first give as adequate an account as I
can of the arguments of those who oppose doing this, or who mute the
criticism of Palestinian violence almost beneath audibility.
The main argument is that the relationship between Israel and Palestine is
not symmetrical. Israel has overwhelming power and is using it:
ÿ Israel has cut the Palestinian territories into small enclaves, separated
by corridors of Israeli settlements and soldiers and military checkpoints.
ÿ Israel is besieging and blockading Palestinian towns and villages.
ÿ Israel has shattered the Palestinian economy, shuttered many of its schools.
None of these is true in reverse: Israel is not under occupation, siege, or
blockade, its schools are open and its economy is working, there are no armed
Palestinian settlers swaggering down Israeli streets, forcing curfews on
Israeli towns, etc.
As facts, I think all of this is accurate.
And I think this situation is unjust, and anti-peace, and deserves to be
criticized, protested, and (nonviolently) resisted, by Palestinians, by Jews,
and by anyone else. We need to say that ending the occupation and the
extra-territorial Israeli settlements will not only serve justice and peace,
but will save Israeli lives – the lives of soldiers and settlers – as well
as Palestinian lives.
The question is whether this asymmetry justifies terrorism, and whether it
requires silence about terrorism from a movement for peace and justice.
I think not. And I think it is legitimate for me, and people who agree with
me, to insist that actions against the Israeli occupation (like the June 8
vigils) also speak out against Palestinian terrorism, at the same time making
clear that the power relationship between the people is not symmetrical.
Why do I think this?
First , because from every ethical standpoint the murder of unarmed civilians
is vile.
I have been told that ethics is a world different from politics, and that
from a political standpoint one should focus on the asymmetry of power and
not address the ethical vileness of this terrorism.
But there are two things wrong with this view:
1. I think we all have seen that a politics that is severed from ethics
becomes an unethical, anti-ethical, brutal, destructive, dehumanizing,
tyrannical politics.
As Martin Buber wrote in "Recollection of a Death" (in Pointing the Way, p.
118):
"I cannot conceive of anything real corresponding to the saying that 'the end
'sanctifies' the means; but I mean something which is real in the highest
sense of the term when I say that the means profane, actually make
meaningless, the end, that is, its realization!
"What is realized is the farther from the goal that was set, the more out of
accord with it is the method by which it was realized."
Buber was writing this in 1921 or thereabouts, in regard to the Leninist use
of the "Red Terror."
AND – it applies with great power today, to both Israel and the nascent
Palestine. The use by either of them of terror, torture, bombings,
demolition of homes, sieges, assassinations, etc becomes part of the fabric
of the society.
Those who are committed to a Jewish state, to a free Palestine, to a just and
peaceful world, should condemn such actions for what they create politically,
as well as for their ethical corruption.
2. Terrorism is itself a political act.
Read this from Uri Avneri, one of the most stalwart of Israelis committed to
peace and justice, an opponent of the occupation from practically the instant
of its beginning in 1967:
"When the al-Aksa intifada broke out and many Palestinians withdrew from open
contacts with Israelis, Faisal [Husseini] did not retreat one step.
"We met several times at the Orient House and we held a big public meeting
there. A week before his death he suddenly appeared, without prior notice, at
an Israel-Palestinian press conference for the international press, in which
we expressed our unshakable belief in peace between the two peoples.
"This spirit was prevalent at yesterday’s funeral, too. The few Israelis who
came to tender their condolences were received with open arms in the
courtyard where thousands were crammed, hundreds came to shake our hands. One
of the Israelis was invited to speak.
"In my heart I treated Faisal as a brother. For me, the frontline does not
pass between Israelis and Palestinians, but between the Israeli and
Palestinian peace lovers on one side and the war-mongers of both peoples on
the other.
"Less than six hours after the Palestinian people united around Faisal’s
coffin, the war camp hit back.
"The suicide bomber who blew himself up among the boys and girls at the
Dophinarium discotheque on the sea-shore of Tel-Aviv did a great service to
the settlers, who are trying to convince the Israeli public that it is not
because of them that the rivers of blood are flowing and that there is no
difference between the settlements and Tel-Aviv.
"The collaboration between the Islamic fanatics and the extreme right-wing in
Israel is a fact of life, as is the cooperation between the likes of Faisal
and the Israeli peace activists.
"The Israeli government does not belong – to put it mildly - to the peace
front. If not stopped by international forces, it will choose escalation. In
the ping-pong game between Rehavam Ze’evi and Sheikh Yassin, Hizbullah and
the settlers, the ball is a human skull.
"The heart of Faisal Husseini stopped beating when we need him more than
ever. "
Then why should a movement for peace and justice refrain from condemning a
political act that is vile in its ethics and destructive in its politics? An
article by Henry Lowi (excerpt just below) makes this same point even more
colorfully. As Lowi wrote:
". . .those who sent [ the Tel Aviv bomber] should be branded as criminals to
the cause of a Free Palestine.
"There is no need to remind readers that, among Tel Aviv discotheque
revellers one can find opponents of the occupation, enemies of Zionism, army
resisters and deserters, and just plain folks who want to escape from the
madness and relax.
By targetting them, what message does one send? Does one send a message of
despair; i.e. look at how desperate I am, understand me, sympathize with me,
embrace me?
"No way. One sends the following message:
"Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, we will get you. Our enemy is not
the settlers. Our enemy is not the army. Our enemy is not racism. Our enemy
is not colonialism. Our enemy is you, wherever you are, and whatever you are
doing.
"This is exactly the message that Sharon, and Katzav, and their allies, and
their predecessors, want Israelis to get. . . . The media spin, in support of
Israeli violence against Palestinians, has now received an amazing boost. The
spin will clearly be that the Israelis are the victims of Palestinian racist
violence.
"Thus, the beneficiaries of Palestinian suicide bombings are not the Palest
inian people, but the Israeli racists."
This leaves a question: If we oppose and criticize terrorism, what can we say
about how to prevent it?
The official answer of the Israeli government has been – with more violence.
But we have already seen that draconic blockades, sieges, bombings, etc. etc.
all fail to stop such vile actions as the Tel Aviv bombing.
Given that all life is a gamble, how?
It seems to me that what would ENHANCE the chances of stopping terrorism
--without a guarantee -- -- is a serious peace, because it would redirect
energy into society-building instead of rage and hatred. (But it might for a
brief period also bring about a burst of terrorist attempts just as
agreement is near, as has happened in the past, for the precise purpose of
preventing agreement.)
And within its own boundaries, Israel would certainly be correct in taking
the measures any state would take to prevent terrorism.
Finally, let me repeat: I think all of us who are committed to justice, to
peace, to the safety and freedom of Israel as well as the emerging Palestine,
ought to insist on incorporating this perspective into actions for peace –
including June 8. Where we vigil and what our signs say and what message is
given the media are important.
Shalom, Arthur
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director
The Shalom Center
www.shalomctr.org
>>
The preceding is a personal opinion. Try not to post more than daily.
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