A Presbyterian,
a Palestinian, and a Jew join in calling for an end to the devastation
of Palestine
[5-7-02]
Arch Taylor, a former Presbyterian missionary in Japan, along with a
Palestinian-American and a Jewish-American, published an open letter
on May 4 in the Louisville Courier-Journal, with the headline:
AN END TO PALESTINIAN DEVASTATION.
We thank the three authors for their permission to
post their letter here.
AN END TO PALESTINIAN DEVASTATION
by Ira Grupper, Ibrahim Imam, and Arch B. Taylor, Jr.
Ibrahim Imam, a Palestinian-American, and Ira Grupper, a
Jewish-American, are cochairs of the Louisville Committee for
Israeli/Palestinian States. Arch B. Taylor, Jr., is a retired
Presbyterian minister and former
Japan missionary.
The Israeli-Palestinian
crisis, escalating over time, was instigated and steadily inflamed by
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As bad as the fighting has been
over the years, it has now reached new heights. Under Sharon's
administration more Israelis have been killed, and peace and security
for his people are farther away than ever, while the Palestinians suffer
even more horrendous consequences.
The Israeli military use
United States-made planes, tanks, and helicopters against a largely
unarmed, or relatively poorly armed, Palestinian populace. Palestinians
are dying. Israelis are dying. The world looks on, and the devastation
continues.
Palestinian suicide
bombings in Jerusalem cafes, and attacks on unarmed civilians in several
Israeli cities, have left the country terrorized. We condemn all such
terrorist acts by Palestinians, but we also condemn state terrorism by
the Israeli Defense Force under Ariel Sharon inflicted upon a whole
population. Revulsion against Israel has recently taken the form of
anti-Semitic acts against synagogues in France and elsewhere, possibly
including Louisville. We denounce such acts. Yet the struggle against
anti-Semitism becomes more difficult when the organized Jewish community
does not cry out against the crimes committed in the name of the Jewish
people by the state of Israel against their Palestinian semitic cousins.
Spokespersons for the
International Red Cross and other relief agencies have corroborated
charges by The Union of Health Work Committees that Israeli occupying
forces frequently prevent emergency health crews from evacuating
casualties, sometimes causing them to bleed to death. Several
Palestinian paramedics and doctors have been shot and killed. Increasing
numbers of children are showing symptoms of hysteria, sleeping
disorders, and other kinds of mental and emotional trauma. In the hovels
of Jenin refugees, civilians have been buried alive by armed bulldozers.
After visiting Jenin,
Javier Zuniga, of Amnesty International, stated: "We have
concluded, on a preliminary basis, that very serious violations of human
rights were committed. We are talking here [about] war crimes."
Representatives of human rights agencies and UN personnel have expressed
similar condemnation after viewing the carnage.
Israel is systematically
destroying not only the Palestinians' present but also their future. In
the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz April 24 Amira Hass described
the total trashing of computers and files in the governmental offices in
Ramallah: These are the data banks developed in Palestinian Authority
institutions like the Education Ministry, the Higher Education Ministry
and the Health Ministry. These are the data banks of the
non-governmental organizations and research institutes devoted to
developing a modern health system, modern agricultural, environmental
protection and water conservation. These are the data banks of human
rights organizations, banks and private commercial enterprises,
infirmaries, and supermarkets. They all were clearly the targets for
destruction in the military operation called Defensive Shield.
Ariel Sharon, architect of
the Israeli policy of occupying and settling Palestinian land, continues
to demonstrate why much of the world calls him a war criminal. His
crimes against humanity date back to 1953. While a major in the Israeli
army in 1953, men under his command murdered sixty-nine unarmed Arabs,
mostly women and children, in the Jordanian village of Qibya. Sharon
continued in 1982, when he looked the other way while his Phalangist
Christian charges in the South Lebanese Army murdered, some say over two
thousand, unarmed Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee
camps. And now he is doing it again in 2002.
The U.S. media talk
constantly about Palestinian "extremists." If this term is
accurate, then where is the coverage of the Molodet Party, an intrinsic
part of the Ariel Sharon government, that wants a complete
"transfer," i.e. ethnic cleansing, of Palestinian citizens
from Israel proper? Not since the proposed "Iron Wall" of
oppression against the Arabs, advocated by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the Jewish
admirer of the fascist Benito Mussolini, has there been such a situation
as now exists.
Sharon ignored President
Bush's demands to end the occupation, and he sent Secretary of State
Powell back home empty handed. He granted and then refused permission
for an international team to conduct a survey of Jenin. Yet Mr. Bush
described Sharon as a man of peace, and the U.S. Congress is now
preparing to increase military aid for Israel. Who is in charge here?
Crown Prince Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia proposed a peace initiative to which up to now Mr. Bush has
turned a cold shoulder. The Prince has spoken publicly about the growing
negative effects which US support for Israel is producing throughout the
entire Arab and Muslim world. Mr. Bush emerged from their three-hour
conference with an optimistic spin, but he needs to pay close heed to
the Prince's blunt talk. As a minimum first step toward a solution, the
US must insist on an immediate dispatch of a UN sponsored team to
separate the combatants and investigate charges of crimes on both sides.
The soul of Israel is
being questioned, the "light unto the nations" is refracting
poorly against the darkness of its inhumanity. More than one thousand
Palestinians and more than three hundred Israelis have been killed in
this slaughterhouse. But the moral fiber of the US is also being
undermined by our failure to take a clear stand on behalf of the
Palestinian people and all peoples in the region. Mere words calling for
Israeli withdrawal and eventual establishment of a viable Palestinian
state will avail absolutely nothing so long as unconditional support for
Israel and Sharon continues.
We must follow the example
of Israeli Jews who themselves recognize the injustice of their
government's policies and are willing to say so publicly. At least 435
Israeli combat officers and soldiers have signed a statement declaring
that they will not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to
"dominate, expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people."
They say: "The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve
any legitimate purpose. And we shall take no part in them."
These courageous Israeli
Jews, and many more courageous Palestinians, Jews and others, know that
both sides must take risks for peace, that oil, geopolitical domination,
and narrow national self-interests are not worth more than a world
without war and hate. We believe that peace can come only when both
Israel and Palestine co-exist as viable, independent states side by
side, each with recognized and secure borders.
