Genevieve — Transcripts from the Diplomats National Press Club Conference on Middle East
Topic(s): Palestine / Israel | Comments Off on Genevieve — Transcripts from the Diplomats National Press Club Conference on Middle EastTranscripts from the Diplomats National Press Club Conference on Middle East
Peace
August 2, 2004 12:00
Introduction by Sara Powell, Administrative and Public Relations director for
the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
In May, a number of retired diplomats and government officials signed a letter
to President Bush advocating a change in U.S. foreign policy to be truly
honest in our dealings with Palestine and Israel for the good of all
concerned: Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans. As a result, the signers
were invited by the Palestinian American Congress to visit the West Bank.
No joint statement has been issued by the delegation, but individual
statements are in your press packets. Unfortunately, one member of the
delegation, John Brady Kiesling-the first Foreign Service Officer to resign
from his position over the second Gulf war, the attack on Iraq-was not able to
provide us with a statement, but his earlier remarks can be made available on
request.
I am proud to say that my father was among the signers and would be here today
if he could, and I am honored to introduce the members of the delegation.
Please welcome Ambassador Andrew Killgore, former Ambassador to Qatar and
Publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
REMARKS BY AMBASSADOR ANDREW I. KILLGORE
On May 4, we held a press conference here at the National Press Club to
discuss a letter sent to President George W. Bush by some 60 retired U.S.
foreign service officers. The press club kindly opened up another room to
accommodate the large number of reporters and cameramen who appeared to cover
the event. The international press, particularly in Britain and the Arab
world, pounced on the story-relieved, no doubt, to report on an American
alternative to Bush’s Mideast policy. We were disappointed, however, that, for
the most part, the U.S mainstream media ignored the press conference and the
opinions of career diplomats and experts critical of current U.S. foreign
policy.
There are now almost 90 signatures on that letter urging the president “to
reassert American principles of justice and fairness in our relations with all
the peoples in the Middle East.” The letter, initiated by myself, publisher
of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to
Qatar, and Washington Report executive editor Richard Curtiss, former chief
inspector of the U.S. Information Agency, was prompted by President Bush’s
April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral
“disengagement plan.”
Through his endorsement, Bush closed the door to negotiations with
Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state. His acceptance of the
Israeli prime minister’s unilateral plan to reject the rights of three million
Palestinians, to deny the right of refugees to return to their homeland, and
to retain five large illegal settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank
astounded the world.
Our letter was signed by retired U.S. diplomats-Republicans and Democrats
alike-who care deeply about their country and its foreign policy. It was faxed
and express mailed to the White House on May 19, along with a request for a
meeting. We received no response. At the beginning of June we sent another
request for a meeting, and on June 22 we sent a similar letter to Secretary of
State Colin Powell. We have yet to receive an reply, either from the White
House or the State Department.
Palestinians both here in the United States and in the occupied territories
did respond to our letter, however. The Palestinian American Congress invited
a delegation of diplomats and journalists from the Washington Report to visit
Palestine and President Yasser Arafat, who remains isolated and besieged in
his Ramallah compound. Palestinian representatives from Washington, DC and
Ramallah organized a weeklong action-packed trip to the West Bank from July 16
to July 23. The Gaza portion was canceled due to the unstable situation which
developed after we arrived. We thank Palestinian Americans Said Hamad and
Nabil Zneid of the PLO office in Washington, DC for showing us sights we’ll
never forget.
Yesterday another American soldier was killed in Iraq, bringing the total to
910 U.S. soldiers killed since March 2003. Also yesterday, Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge announced new threats from al-Qaeda on financial
institutions in New York City and here in Washington, DC. And, finally, the
Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported yesterday on Israeli plans to build an
additional 600 homes in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, increasing
its population by an estimated 2,000, or some 7 percent.
These events are not unrelated. Until there is a fair and just solution to the
56-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we submit, Israelis, Palestinians
and Americans-not to mention Kenyans, Tanzanians, Spaniards and other victims
of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks-will continue to die. We urgently request our
government to go beyond the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, which gave
scant attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and address the root
cause of the problems our country and the world face today.
STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR EDWARD L. PECK
In May, over 80 former American diplomats wrote President George W. Bush to
express their firm belief that his agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon was not in the best interests of the U.S., or Israel, or the
Palestinians. A delegation of those who signed the letter recently spent a
week in the West Bank, at the invitation of the Palestinian American Congress.
All the participants have extensive experience living in and working on the
Middle East, and considerable familiarity with the issues generated by 37
years of occupation. Nonetheless, it was a shock to see the extent of land
seizures, tight travel restrictions and endless humiliation which the
Palestinians are forced to endure. In addition to violating every principle
defining democracy, human rights and the rule of law, Israel’s policies,
strongly supported by the administration, sharply undercut the two-state
solution which has been the basis of all reasonable efforts to resolve the
problem, and permit all the inhabitants of the region to exist in peace and
security.
Delegates had many opportunities to observe portions of the wall, planned to
enclose the entire Palestinian population in the world’s largest outdoor
prisons, and the shattering effect it has already had on people’s lives. They
also passed through, or were turned back from, several of the many checkpoints
which seriously impede commerce as well as everyday existence. The delegation
met with Palestinian citizens, educational, religious and municipal government
officials, a U.S. consular officer and a member of the Knesset, and senior
members of the Palestinian Authority, including President Yasser Arafat.
It was an extremely chilling, deeply disturbing visit, made more compelling by
the realization that even Americans reasonably confident of their knowledge of
the situation have no idea of the grim, threatening reality of what is
happening-and the inevitable results.
Statement by Delinda Hanley (News Editor from the Washington Report Magazine
Remarks To Accompany 21 Photos blown up to poster size by Michael Keating
From July 16 to July 23, we met with numerous Palestinian political leaders,
religious figures, lawyers, journalists, professors, students, farmers and
others, and toured the West Bank seeing first-hand the devastation caused by
Israel’s wall, land confiscation, and harsh occupation. We also met with a
staff member from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem for an off-the-record
discussion that seemed to focus on Palestinian failures and corruption,
ignoring Israel’s illegal occupation and corruption. We met with an American
NGO representative who astounded us with tales of trying to deliver food to
beleaguered Palestinians, and another who is helping them produce their own
American-style soap operas.
We tried to meet with Israelis, including a rabbi, a refusenik and others
working for peace. We did meet with Israeli Knesset member Azmi Bishara. Due
to horrendous communication and travel difficulties that both Americans and
Palestinians living in the occupied territories take in their stride, our only
face-to-face discussions with other Israelis were with soldiers and settlers,
and an Israeli peace activist who monitors border crossings. But we probably
met a greater number of Israelis than Americans meet Palestinians on
Israeli-sponsored trips.
We asked our hosts to show us Israel’s new separation barrier. We discovered
that the wall does not separate Israelis from Palestinians. The settlers and
soldiers are often on the Palestinian side of the wall. Instead the wall
separates Palestinians from other Palestinians, and makes every Palestinian
town a jail. Within 5 minutes Israel can cage an entire city. The wall will
directly affect more than 500,000 Palestinians.
On July 18 we visited the town of Qalqilya, north of Ramallah. Israel’s new
wall has surrounded the town and cut it off from the rest of the West Bank as
well as Israel. We wandered around fruit stands in the central marketplace
with few other customers. These boys hammed it up for the cameras. Everyone
asked where we were from-and welcomed us.
Israelis are now forbidden by their government to shop for produce, get
haircuts or fix their cars in Qalqilya as they used to. Israel has posted
signs saying it is forbidden to even enter Qalqilya. This town will not
survive without trade from Israel, and is already dying.
Israel is also cordoning off Qalqilya’s fields from its farmers. Farmers can
visit their fields outside the wall only when Israeli soldiers open the gates.
They open these gates erratically and subject to whim. This farmer,
accompanied by his son, clutches his pass to show the soldier-who, today, lets
them go to work in their field.
Our guide, who is afraid to let us use her name for fear Israelis will not
renew her permit to stay in the West Bank, introduced us to Atta Atta, who
until two weeks before this photo had an ornamental plant business with
greenhouses on a couple of dozen acres on the edge of Qalqilya. In one night
he lost a half-million dollar business he’d worked 14 years to build. His
family first lost land in 1948. For 35 years he worked to buy this land, only
to see it taken again. He has no way now to support his six daughters and four
sons.
Israeli bulldozers destroyed a number of his greenhouses and cut off access to
the rest when they built the wall. The water wells are on the Israeli side of
the wall. Strings of razor accordion wire and barriers separated Mr. Atta from
his land. “You know who owns the land you’re standing on?” he asked a soldier
who told us to step away from the wall. “I do. It’s my land.” The soldier
turned away. Atta told us, “They don’t want the people. Only the land. Every
child knows this!”
Next we met Jalal Zaid, a poultry farmer whose chickens are on the wrong side
of the wall. When the wall first was built he was not allowed to not pass
through, and more than 15,000 chickens starved to death. Finally he obtained a
permit, which is now about to expire. He’s afraid officials won’t renew it
because they are now saying the area may be off limits because it is near a
new military road. Only landowners can get permits, and only sometimes, Zaid
said. His 40 workers do not have land registry papers, so they are not
entitled to receive a permit to work in his chicken houses, with the new
chickens he took out loans to pay for. The gate opens three times a day,
depending on the mood of the soldiers. Egg production has fallen from 1,500
cartons a day to 900.
We met a third farmer, Sharif Omar, whose 40 acres of cultivated farmland in
Jayyous is surrounded by settlements. Sometimes 30 families slept in their
fields in order to protect them from marauding settlers. Omar has put seven
children through college by farming this land and harvesting his fruit trees.
The Israelis tried to confiscate his land and water wells in1996, but Omar
took his case to court and won five years later. Now rumor has it that the
Israeli military has designated his land as a closed military zone. They’d
placed military signs around his orchards.
As we waited for Omar to join us, our photographer Michael Keating took some
photos of the mysterious signs with some kind of military code that have been
placed on Omar’s land. Suddenly a settler appeared and claimed to be Shin
Bet-Israeli secret police-but who was probably just a settler vigilante, and
asked what we were doing in a forbidden area. He told us to leave and not
return until after 4 o’clock, for the area was closed now.
We drove away and found Omar, on his old tractor which he called his F-16.
Omar didn’t know anything about the settler and couldn’t understand why we
couldn’t meet as planned in the coolness of his fruit grove. “This land is my
paradise,” Sherif said. “It’s my Jerusalem. It’s my Al-Quds.” Some days this
vibrant man can’t get out of bed he’s so depressed. Our guide didn’t want to
tell him her suspicions that his land may have been turned into a military
firing range.
This is Israel’s way to try to force Palestinians to leave. It’s a quiet
deportation. It’s causing controlled despair and forcing some people past
their limits.
There are 425 settlements in the West Bank, 125 legal and 300 illegal,
according to Israel. According to international law, they’re all illegal.
Road signs advertise new homes for sale in expanding settlements with Old
Testament names, offering the temptations of low down payments, as well as tax
incentives and government subsidies. These temptations lure 10,000 new
settlers a year into occupied territories. Israel has not evacuated a single
settlement or outpost as required by the road map for peace. These settlements
are foreclosing a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
We visited Hebron University. President Dr. Khanfar and his professors asked
us to tell Americans back home about their suffering under Israeli occupation.
Hebron University was closed for 8 months last year. The university has been
closed for a total of more than five years since it was established in 1971.
They said they could never forget the massacre when Israelis killed three
students and injured more than 50 others in July 1982.
A room full of professors and community leaders took the opportunity to tell
Americans at long last, face-to-face, about their grievances. They told us
that nothing Israel could do would prevent their determination to live. Of the
3.5 million Palestinians living under occupation, every family has had a
family member arrested, wounded or killed. Israel’s harsh occupation is
creating anger against both Israel and the Palestinian Authority that is
powerless to protect its people. According to the teachers, 64 percent of Palestinians are youths in school. They are our future, we were told. They
will continue the peace process.
They asked us to remind Americans of our country’s values of fairness,
unbiased and even-handed justice. They said we could spread genuine peace all
over the world if we used our power to help implement a peace agreement
between Israel and Palestine. They asked us to speak out against the wall that
is separating students from their schools. They said most of the people in the
room don’t want to destroy Israel, but one day if this keeps up, they will get
fed up and no one can guess what will happen.
According to the director of education in Hebron, his beloved city is now a
city of hatred in which 400 Israeli settlers living in the heart of town have
ruined the lives of 550,000 Palestinians. Nearly 3,000 soldiers guard the
settlers and have closed off the city center. A physician told us he is the
only doctor who hasn’t left town. Patients die waiting for ambulances that
cannot get through checkpoints. There used to be more than 1,000 shops in
Hebron. Most of those in the historic city center are closed now.
As we waited for nearly an hour to enter the old city, we watched
ultra-Orthodox settlers stroll leisurely through the boarded up town. We were
finally allowed past the razor sharp fence and told to follow a white jeep
that led us through town to the Ibrahimi Mosque. As our bus full of
white-haired diplomats passed a group of young ultra-Orthodox children, they
yelled and gave us the finger.
We visited Al Quds University on July 20. We saw the wall, whose original
route nearly cut through the university. It was rerouted to take only half of
the university’s athletic fields. More professors and community leaders gave
us lectures. They asked why Americans believed their democratically elected
President Arafat was the problem, and said, “We think he’s the solution.” They
told us it was Palestinians who don’t have a peace partner in Sharon.
They reminded us that our forefathers stood for democracy and freedom, yet our
president supported occupation. They said Palestinians condemned the September
11 attacks against Americans. Why didn’t we condemn Israel’s attacks against
Palestinians? Why did we help Israelis prevent Palestinians from praying in
Jerusalem?
As we walked by Manal Ayyad’s house in Abu Dis, she invited us inside her
home, with its view of Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock in the distance.
Miss Ayyad is a student who attends Al Quds and lives in hell. She has a
Jerusalem ID card, although her next-door-neighbors do not. They never had any
problems with Israeli settlers who live nearby, but the wall and soldiers are
making life impossible. She said she has problems going anywhere. The Israeli
soldiers who have taken over a nearby hotel harass her and sometimes prevent
her mother from visiting her sick grandmother. Their cameras overlook their
garden so, she cannot even relax outside. Her uncle cannot visit her mother.
She and her neighbors went to court to try to stop the wall from cutting
across their neighborhood. “No one can stop Israelis,” she said told us.
The next day, July 21, we visited the little town of Bethlehem, dying without
its tourist industry. Bethlehem is another big prison surrounded by
settlements and the Israeli wall. Bethlehem belongs to Christians all over
the world, Mayor Hana Nassar told us. As Muslims have a duty to visit their
holy places, Christians should visit Jesus’ birthplace, he said. The wall is
preventing Christians from coming, and the main road into town has been closed
because it passes Rachel’s Tomb. Even the mayor is sometimes told by an
18-year-old Israeli soldier that he cannot come and go from Bethlehem.
Mayor Nassar recalled the siege of the Church of Nativity, saying it was a
miracle that it didn’t burn down after Israeli soldiers threw flares in the
sky. Nassar said they were all living on their nerves. Nassar, who is
Christian, said he was furious that Christians in the United States were
backing Israel’s occupation of the Holy Land. He noted that President Bush
seems to have forgotten his vision for peace in the region. He said he was
waiting for a new vision from another president. The Old Testament had a lot
of visions, he said, but this time he was hoping for a vision to become a
reality.
We visited Jenin, where what what the Palestinians call ground zero is now
beginning to return to normal. The United Arab Emirates’ Sheikh Zayed is
paying to rebuild the homes Israel demolished in its deadly April 2002
invasion. This man tried to help a handicapped man in a wheelchair evacuate
his home-but he couldn’t get him out before Israelis bulldozed the home with
him inside. This is also where the British UN worker Ian Hook was shot by an
Israeli soldier on the UN compound when they first started rebuilding Jenin.
Architect Hidaya Nafmi said her home was taken over by Israeli snipers. Her
two children are always frightened and have problems sleeping. Her daughter
almost died during the siege. She said it’s hard to teach children not to hate
and not to fear. Like every mother, she explained, she wants her children to
live a peaceful life.
We visited President Yasir Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters, which is
nearly destroyed. There are no photos of the still spry and charismatic leader
on his walls. Instead there is a portrait of International Solidarity Movement
volunteers Rachel Corey and Tom Hurndell, killed by Israeli soldiers. Despite
an internal upheaval in his government, Arafat took the time to meet with us
for two hours and give us lunch. “We are in need of friends,” he told us.
Arafat has met with every U.S. President except for Ronald Reagan and George
W. Bush. He met with Bill Clinton 23 times. He still hopes that the American
people will help both Palestinians and Israelis achieve the peace of the brave
in the Land of Peace. The Holy Land is not for just Israelis or Palestinians,
he said, but for the whole world.
Arafat said he and the entire Arab world have accepted the Saudi Arabian
Initiative and the Road Map for Peace. It’s Sharon who had 14 reservations and
now is insisting on his own road map. Now neither Israel nor the United States
speaks to Arafat. Arafat leapt to his feet to show us a Christmas candle from
the church where President Bush prays.
“You Americans made peace in South Africa. You made a miracle at the Madrid
Conference. We gave up 22 percent of our land. You helped Rabin and me sign a
peace of the brave. Why are you hesitating today? Why are you supporting this
Berlin Wall that is confiscating 58 percent of that 22 percent of our land?
It’s unbelievable!” the Palestinian leader exclaimed.
“Israel is destroying refugee camps, housing, schools, hospitals, this
building around me, our entire infrastructure. Israel is taking not just our
land, but our 82 percent of our water and then selling it back to us. Can you
believe it? Christians and Muslims alike can’t go to Jerusalem to pray.”
Arafat listed the Christian and Muslim holy places that have been damaged or
destroyed by Israel. He said Sharon is looking to transfer Palestinians out of
the West Bank and Gaza.
Two weeks ago, Arafat said, he offered his hand to Israelis to make a peace of
the brave, and got a good response from Arabs and Israeli peace groups. He
said he is ready to hold elections. He asked President Bush to help solve the
conflict in Israel and Palestine. Everything else in the Middle East would
fall into place from there, he explained.
Statement Also By Delinda Hanley
I’m the daughter of a diplomat, Richard Curtiss, co-founder of the Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs Magazine. I’m also a former Peace Corps
volunteer, who spent decades living in the Middle East, and I’m now the news
editor of the Washington Report.
I saw the horror of the wall, the humiliation at the checkpoints and the
senselessness of the settlements and the occupation.
I cannot understand why the country I love is supporting all of this. I ask
President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry to change their Middle East
foreign policy. It’s making it very hard for Americans like me to travel, and
it is even bringing danger to Americans at home.
Please help us go back to the negotiating table and become an evenhanded peace
broker.
Tell Prime Minister Sharon to end this occupation, and tear down this wall.
If he ignores your words as well as the hopes of every peace-loving Jew,
Muslim and Christian voter in this country, end U.S. aid to Israel and spend
that $3 billion plus dollars a year at home.
The world is watching this election and waiting for a vision for peace in the
region. I’m kind of hoping for a Road to Damascus conversion for both
candidates. It’s high time for a miracle in the Holy Land.
I challenge every journalist, politician, teacher, religious leader and
average American citizen in the audience to visit the occupied territories,
talk with Palestinians, and see what Israel is doing to its neighbor with our
support. Find out the facts for yourself.
I ask every European and Arab in the audience to give this country another
chance. Once everyday Americans find out what is happening to average
Palestinians, real people trying to make it through the day, like themselves,
they’ll stop supporting this occupation.
STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR CARLETON S. COON
I had been generally aware that the settlements and the new wall were having a
serious impact on the Palestinians who live in the West Bank, but this visit
showed me, in vivid detail, that the situation is far more grave than I had
realized.
The 700 checkpoints, the network of modern roads ordinary Palestinians are not
allowed to use, the settlements themselves, and now the wall, are confining
most Palestinians into small enclaves. It isn’t just that they have lost much
of their best farmland, The fact that they can no longer circulate within
their own territory makes it almost impossible for Palestinians to operate a
normal economy, to run a functioning government, to manage a modern
educational system, indeed to function as a coherent society. This is a new
situation and it is rapidly getting worse as the Sharon administration races
to complete the wall and expand the settlements, operating as far as we can
tell against some deadline (next November?)
I have been persuaded by what I have seen that when presented with options as
to how best to enhance security against suicide bombers, the Sharon
administration regularly selects the option most damaging to the fabric and
integrity of Palestinian society. But is this in Israel’s long-term interest?
Will the end result not be a dismembered and fragmented conquered population,
forced into ghettos, which will become breeding grounds for future terrorists?
If so, I submit that Israel is shooting itself in the foot with its present
policies. It is guaranteeing that its terrorist problem will last for another
generation, or even longer.
And our government is shooting us in the foot as well, with its supine
agreement to anything Sharon wants. The USA is accessory to a cruel and
malicious program in the West Bank, and if we do not change, we will also be
targets of future terrorists for another generation or more.
REMARKS BY AMBASSADOR COON
The first impression I got on this trip, was that Palestine was more of a
functioning modern state than I thought, with an infrastucture and government
in place. We were told that it was receiving a lot of financial aid from the
European Union, and from Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, and that
prior to the second intifada, the economy had been growing at a rate of 9
percent. What I saw led me to believe that Sharon and his followers took the
intifada as a signal to destroy the economy, the state, and the society, and
that he chose the most destructive way every time.
The ghettoization that has divided the land into tiny fenced enclaves has
destroyed the economy. You can’t run commerce, you can’t run a university, you
can’t run a government under these conditions-if goods can’t get from place to
place, and government ministers can’t get to a meeting.
The wall is not just a land grab, not just security, but the final nail in the
coffin of Palestinian society.
The 3.5 million people in that small area might be workable with lots of aid
and goodwill from the outside, and they have that, but not if it is broken up
into tiny separate units. The people who can, get out. The people who can’t,
stay as Delinda said, they-the Israelis-just want the land, not the people, as
every kid knows.
Those kids could grow up to be terrorists.
I maintain that Sharon is killing Israel, and I further maintain that the U.S.
is shooting itself in the foot, and that Sharon is carrying out the cruel and
malicious destruction of the Palestinian entity.
I’d like to add that yes, this is a one-sided view, but it is the other side,
the side never seen because the one-sided U.S. media does not tell it.
Remarks by Eugene Bird, Former Foreign Service Officer and President, Council
for the National Interest
The West Bank is as dismal as everything that has been described here. You
can’t expect Arafat to be a partner in peace alone. Sometimes, as our group of
white haired American diplomats went along, we were refused passage at
checkpoints. Then we circled around to another, where we might be refused
again, then to another where finally we would sometimes get through. And we
were privileged, not like ordinary Palestinians, and we were just there
temporarily. We did not have to live with it every day.
I remember what was told me by a woman my wife brought on a tour to tell
Americans here about life there, just to live and let live, and it is the best
common sense way to deal with the situation.
When Andy and I were there 50 years ago, there were few checkpoints and no
fence, but there were very few Palestinians going into Israel. The wall is a
graffiti board. As a result of Oslo, Israel gained the recognition of 68
countries who before had not recognized Israel. They gained much more than
Palestine.
Israel is destroying itself. In three major Zogby polls, over 50 percent of
Americans said we should recognize a Palestinian state now, over 50 percent
said we should hold Israel accountable in the same way we are holding Syria
accountable, and over 50 percent said that the John Kerry and John Edwards
ticket should come out with a strong statement changing our relations with
Israel, along the lines of the Crown Prince Abdullah plan.
We are playing Israel’s game in the Middle East and it won’t lead us to
solutions for Iraq, or terrorism. The Kerry statement that we should reduce
troops in Iraq over the next four years is inadequate. It’s like Sharon saying
he would withdraw from Gaza, then not doing so. We are the Israel, the
occupiers, of Iraq.
There is a story that a Palestinian official was talking with a group of
Israel-favoring Congressmen, who told the Palestinian that they would help
with elections if the Palestinian could assure them that Arafat would not run.
The Palestinian official said maybe we can do that if you can assure us that
George Bush will not run.
I was talking to a young movie producer who spent time in Tel Aviv, and he
said there was a young woman in a nightclub there who said, “We spent 2,000
years in the diaspora, now it is the Palestinians’ turn.” You heard about the
settlers who gave us the finger, another settler said, “I hate Americans.” It
was totally out of context. It leads to a strong question of what America
might do to stop the Israeli attempt to take it all.
But still, Palestinians are building, doing incredible things. I was told that
Ramallah was the New York of Palestine, and asked what is the Washington, DC.
I did not really get an answer except for a few murmurings of East Jerusalem.
I spoke to a prisoner who had spent seven years in an Israeli jail, been
tortured there. I’ve talked to a number of prisoners who have been tortured.
They all have the same look in their eyes, a far away look as they tell you,
and he had that look of being far away while talking of his experience. But at
the end he said something which surprised me. He said, “I am not pessimistic.”
Remarks by Richard H. Curtiss, Former Chief Inspector, USIA and Executive
Editor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
A Group of Americans Visit Palestine
A group of 9 Americans were invited to participate in a one-week tour of the
Palestinian West Bank which ranged from Hebron in the south to Jenin in the
north and included Ramallah, the provisional capital of the state of
Palestine. The trip of course included Jerusalem and Bethlehem and a lunch
with President Yasser Arafat at his Ramallah headquarters.
Members of the group included three retired U.S. ambassadors, Carlton Coon,
Andrew Killgore and Edward Peck. The others included Eugene Bird of the
Council for the National Interest, and members of the Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs Richard Curtiss, Janet McMahon and Delinda Hanley. Also
included were J. Brady Kiesling who resigned from the U.S. Foreign Service in
protest against President Bush’s foreign policy and volunteer photographer
Michael Keating. Arrangements for the group were provided by the Palestinian
American Congress, U.S. citizens of Palestinian origin. All members of the
group had visited Palestine at least once before and some, particularly the
Foreign Service officers, had been there several times previously.
Conditions were not safe for a planned visit to Gaza at the time of the visit.
Some of the travelers had been in Gaza previously. The group saw the dramatic
deterioration of living conditions in the places they did see.
The most startling development was the separation wall, or apartheid wall,
which was actually under way in many parts of the West Bank. Farmers whose
homes have been separated from their orchards and fields were forced to wait
for a gate to open once or twice a day. The same problem was encountered by
schoolchildren who sometimes missed the brief intervals and then had to travel
either at circuitous routes or had to stay for a night with friends or
relatives. Situations, ranging from medical appointments to emergency needs
such as childbirth, gunshot wounds or other unanticipated ills were simply not
dealt with when the apartheid wall was closed. There seemed to be no
exceptions of any kind. People have died for lack of emergency medical
attention.
Even as members of the group traveled from one place to another there were
unanticipated stops. In one case a settler suddenly appeared and eventually
forced us to halt and go back with no explanation and for no apparent reason.
He was carrying a gun and threatened to use it if we continued. In other
places flying roadblocks appeared when Israeli soldiers suddenly halted
traffic.
From the day the group arrived Israeli soldiers stopped us. The driver was
told to turn around so he took a more circuitous route to another checkpoint
where the group was allowed to pass. This happened again the next day but
subsequently the group was allowed to pass.
This happened so regularly that it was clear this was routine harassment
designed to make life intolerable for all the residents of the West Bank.
Sometimes Israeli soldiers created long delays for no discernible reasons.
Other times the soldiers would wave people on with virtually no
interruptions. The randomness and unpredictability seemed to follow no
pattern.
Therefore when people arrived for events and meetings, they were sometimes on
time and other times were delayed. The people on the West Bank adapt
accordingly. There are 700 checkpoints in the very small area of the West Bank
and Gaza, not including flying (unexpected) checkpoints
When the Israelis have torn down buildings they generally insist on leaving
the damage untouched and have warned people against cleaning up. Everywhere
there was extraordinary property damage.
On one occasion a checkpoint had closed early, leaving travelers stranded. The
bus had to go travel to a more distant checkpoint to get back to our hotel.
Two other times the bus stopped at a checkpoint and we walked across a
so-called no-man’s-land to take taxis to get back to our hotel. It was then
that we realized that there was no nighttime illumination to help the
travelers make their way in the dark. This writer, who is physically impaired
as a result of two strokes and a heart attack, had to be helped by other
members of the group, while stumbling through bricks, boulders and collapsed
walls.
In the dark we could see people in even worse predicaments than any members of
our group. They included babies and toddlers and old men and women barely able
to walk. It was very clear that the hundreds of people passing in the darkness
were accustomed to this extraordinary level of daily hardship.
All members of the group have their own stories. But the common denominator is
cruelty, extraordinary cruelty committed daily with apparent malice. What is
particularly frustrating is that none of this would be necessary if the
Israelis would abide by international agreements.
The Israelis are quite free to do whatever they want on their own side of the
separation wall. The Arab states, and particularly the Arab states all around
Israel, already have agreed that if Israel abides by international agreements,
the Arab states around Israel would enter into diplomatic relations with
Israel without any hindrance whatsoever.
Israel’s insistence on taking more Arab land is an attempt to keep from
solving the problems and leaves the suspicion that the Israeli government
wants to keep everything and does not want the two-state solution and that
possibly the Israelis hope to eliminate all Palestinians by whatever means
possible.
The group originally was scheduled to have one final day for any side trips
they might do on their own. However, a Palestinian contractor working for a
United Arab Emirates building project offered a visit to Jenin, the most
distant part of the West Bank, in United Nations vehicles. Diplomatic vehicles
can also be used for the “Israel Only” roads. As a result, this trip was much
faster for us than it would have been for Palestinians who are not permitted
to use some Israeli roads.
In the major refugee camp in Jenin the Israelis had almost obliterated the
market area. The government of the United Arab Emirates had agreed to clear
the destroyed areas and help restore the partially damaged areas to make them
livable again. The result is a newly-created Jenin. It has been done with
remarkable speed and with virtually no publicity.
With the exception of some western European countries, participants on the
visit learned that in addition to the U.A.E., only Saudi Arabia routinely
provides significant budgetary assistance to the Palestinian Authority. This
is a major source of income, given the refusal of the Israeli authorities to
turn over tax money owed to the Palestinians. This annual Saudi subsidy has
remained constant for a long period of time.
STATEMENT BY JANET MCMAHON, MANAGING EDITOR, WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST
AFFAIRS
As others have noted, the members of our delegation all were experienced in
matters of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We were thus
all the MORE shocked to discover how shocking the reality of daily life in
fact is for every Palestinian we met.
Because we traveled in a small van with a yellow Israeli license plate, we
were able to travel on roads barred to Palestinians whose cars had blue or
green license plates. Nevertheless, we, too, had to pass through Israeli
checkpoints in order to enter or leave Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, or any
other West Bank town where we had appointments. Sometimes we were allowed
through, at other times soldiers turned us back without explanation.
On one occasion, our vehicle was turned back because one of our guides, an
American citizen who was born in Hebron, had a Palestinian identity card. In
fact, Israeli officials had marked his U.S. passport to indicate his
Palestinian origin. Would our government allow a foreign government to
similarly identify Jewish Americans in order to prevent them from traveling
freely in its country?
We also met with a Greek Orthodox clergyman who was not allowed to travel to
Bethlehem because he did not have the proper identity card. A journalist with
a Jerusalem ID was forbidden from living with his wife, who had a West Bank ID
and thus was forbidden from entering Jerusalem.
In addition to the many stories we heard, what struck me was the urgency of
the situation. Palestinians are in crisis, and many have reached the end of
their rope. Their society is disintegrating around them, and parents are
worried that their children will grow up hating-but they feel helpless to
provide an alternative.
As Americans, we knew that our tax dollars were making these Israeli policies
possible. Even though our country did not fund South Africa’s apartheid
government, Americans universally opposed its racist policies. Today Americans
are funding Israeli racism whether they like it or not. It’s critical that
Americans learn how their tax dollars are being used–for not only are they
being used in ways that are diametrically opposed to everything this country
stands for, but they are killing Palestinians, Israelis and Americans alike at
an ever-increasing rate.
Stay tuned for the Diplomats’ next move…Which will most likely be a press
conference in front of the State Department.
————————————————————————–
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