Report One

Beginning a Journey: Anne Frank, Gaza Disengagement, and US Policy

July 31 to August 2

Our delegation arrived at Ben-Gurion airport very early in the morning of Tuesday August 2nd. The airport was almost empty at the hour of 1:30 a.m. and we felt conspicuous walking the long shiny corridors, only passing an occasional maintenance worker. But we were relieved to pass through passport control and retrieve our luggage without any delay. Earlier, some on our plane had clapped when we made a bumpy touchdown. But for many of us on the delegation, the fact that we had really arrived in Israel didn’t sink in until our guide Rimon greeted us in the arrivals lobby and we loaded our bags and selves onto the bus.

Though tired, we felt well prepared for our next thirteen days together in Israel and Palestine. Our orientation at FOR headquarters in Nyack, New York,
was a big help. Sessions covered cultural tips, background to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, active listening skills, our decision-making as a group and
support for one another during the trip. We role-played some of the situations that we might encounter. We got to know one another over meals and between sessions, and through a series of nonviolence training exercises.

After leaving New York, we took advantage of a seven-hour layover in Amsterdam to visit the Anne Frank Museum (www.annefrank.org). Barry van Drel of the Anne Frank Foundation had arranged for us to tour the home where the young Anne Frank hid with her family during Germany's occupation of the Netherlands during WWII. The Franks were attempting to avoid capture and deportation to the death camps by the Nazis. Eventually, the Franks were caught and the Nazis executed Anne, all in her family except her father, and those who provided them refuge.

Climbing the steep narrow staircases to the Franks’ secret hiding place and walking slowly and quietly in line through the stark rooms evoked reflection and heightened our awareness of the horror of those forced into hiding or carted off to death camps. The powerful story of this young woman, found in her diary published after her death, expresses an indomitable spirit that has inspired tens of millions of readers. Tom Ellis, who teaches in Albany, New York, observed several girls about Anne Frank’s age, who were very close to tears.

When we boarded the plane to Tel Aviv, I think we were all more mindful of the great crimes against the Jewish people that forced surviving Jews to flee Europe and settle in Palestine. Additionally, the hundreds of people passing through the Anne Frank house during our brief visit reminded us of the many museums, books, films and other historical and cultural expressions that inform and remind us of the Holocaust of the Jews. Though the Palestinian's human tragedy is, of course, of a different kind and scale, some of us were wondering whether there are any comparable reminders us of the Palestinians’ experience of displacement and exile. At least in the United States, the Palestinians’ experience remains largely unknown.

After a few hours of sleep at the Kfar Maccabi Hotel in Ramat Gan, just north of Tel Aviv, we rallied as a group and plunged into our first formal meeting—a presentation by Adam Sterling, Acting Political Counselor for the US Embassy in Tel Aviv (www.usembassy-israel.org.il/). Sterling gave an overview of US policy. Two weeks shy of heading back to assignment at the State Department in Washington, DC, he said that US policy has consistently rejected Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and opposed the establishment or continued growth of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip. While the US supports Israel’s right to construct what Sterling called a “security barrier” on its pre-1967 border or “Green Line,” the US government opposes further Israeli encroachment upon Palestinian lands.

We pressed Sterling on why the US wasn’t more effective in bending Israel to American will on such a critical issue, given the huge amount of aid provided Israel. Sterling said that the US’s “ability to order it [the barrier] stopped is overestimated.” He explained that a large number of Americans favor US support for Israel as the only democracy in the region and a nation that has been a “good friend” of the US in other situations. The US would be “harmed by a state of war over Israel’s existence,” he said, and there are benefits to the US economy and military from our relationship with Israel. Sterling also said that the Bush Administration is investing enormous political capital in the success of the Gaza Disengagement. He said that US credibility is tied to what Gaza looks like after the withdrawal of Jewish settlements and Israeli military forces.

Sterling also asserted that the Gaza population must see an immediate improvement in their lives in the short and longer term if a peace process is to continue to make incremental progress. The group commented on the huge and potentially insurmountable task that the Palestinian Authority is being given in proving themselves to the international community and Israel by rehabilitating Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions in the world that has consistently received the harshest treatment by Israeli forces leaving many homeless and causing strangulation of the region’s economy.

Sterling said the “security barrier” provides a measure of security to Israel, pointing out that Gaza’s wall was completed years ago and has effectively stopped suicide attacks on Israel. The barrier also strengthens “the psychology of two states—a feeling that ‘We’re here and they’re there’—among both Israelis and Palestinians.” Finally, he says that the security barrier anticipates the eventual abandonment of those settlements on the Palestinian side of the wall, a development that he characterizes as a major change in Israeli policy.

Sterling concluded with the observation that “People who work on this [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] generally know what the eventual solution will look like.” He said that view anticipates major Israeli settlement blocs being incorporated within Israel, with a swap of land elsewhere to the Palestinians and withdrawal of settlements deeper in the West Bank. A successful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will challenge the mentality of both sides.

We boarded the bus and headed south to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Rachel and Uri Avnery, of Gush Shalom,” The Israeli Peace Bloc” (www.gush-shalom.org/english/). Uri Avnery joined the Jewish underground to fight against the British in the Mandatory Period (1919-1948, when Britain ruled Palestine by Mandate from the League of Nations). He fought, was wounded and lost a brother in the 1948 War. He later published a news magazine and several books, was one of the first Israelis to meet with Yasser Arafat and others in the PLO advocating a Two State Solution, served in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) representing a joint Arab and Jewish party that advocated for a Palestinian State along side Israel and equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel, and now is one of the leaders in the Israeli peace movement.

Avnery presented an analysis of US policy in the region. He began with the assertion that the US had abdicated its key role in the peace process. The Israeli lobby has been joined by the powerful Evangelical Christian right-wing lobby in support of extremist factions in Israel to the right of Sharon. Avnery said the common assumption everywhere except in the United States is that the US seized on various trumped up excuses to justify war on Iraq in order to
“put a US gun” in the middle of the Middle East, on top of the world’s second largest oil reserve and between the second and third largest oil reserves.
Stripped of any credible rationale for US presence in Iraq, the Bush administration is now pushing the idea that the spread of democracy is the reason. Ironically, the only success to which Bush can point, in terms of democratization, is the election of Mahmoud Abbas as president of Palestine. This has created some tensions in Israel as Bush has sought to strengthen Abbas.

Avnery also reviewed the possible positives and the many pitfalls of the Gaza Disengagement plan being implemented by Prime Minister Sharon. Although the Israeli peace movement supports Gaza Disengagement because they want to support any Israeli action to dismantle illegal settlements, Avnery fully expects a second phase in which Sharon unilaterally withdraws from part of the West Bank, leaving the Palestinians with only 40-50% of the land there, all isolated in a series of cantons. According to Avnery, “Sharon believes he’s been shown by God—it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t believe in God—to now create the State of Israel as it will continue into the future … with as much territory and as few Arabs as possible.” This new territory for Israel will comprise 58% of the West Bank, including “greater Jerusalem,” the 4-5 largest settlement blocks and a security zone in the Jordan Valley. He anticipates that the US government will go along with this second unilateral “withdrawal” (actual annexation of Palestinian land). The current flap over withdrawal from Gaza is really a surrogate battle hinting at the eventual resolution of the West Bank. All the drama is purposely intended, according to Avnery, to reduce the likelihood of any major removal of West Bank settlements.

We traveled north of Tel Aviv to Ramat Ha Sharon for our next meeting. It was a relief from the bustle and heat of Tel Avis to be welcomed in the home of Israel
and Dorothy Naor. There we had a light dinner and an evening conversation with representatives of NewProfile (www.newprofile.org). New Profile is a feminist group working for the “civil-ization” of Israeli society. They support the right of conscientious objection to military service, make presentations to school, provide support for parents of children dissenting from normative Israeli expectation that they enter the armed forces, and challenge the pervasive influence of the military on Israeli society. We also met with retired Rabbi Moshe Yehuda, Ruth Hiller, Diana Dolev and other members of New Profile.

After introductions, we broke into three smaller groups for more personal interaction. Those who met with Ruth Hiller were impressed by her account of raising three sons who have refused military service. Ruth described
the fear and anxiety that Israelis experience every day in light of continuing terrorist attacks. Her husband, son and daughters frequent a mall in Netanya
that was again targeted by suicide bombers last week.

In another group Dorothy Naor said that after Israeli forces used live ammunition to suppress demonstrations by Arab citizens of Israel at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2001 she began to reassess her commitments and now no longer considers herself a Zionist. Dorothy and Moshe argued about the nature of Zionism and whether the ideals of being both a Jewish and a democratic state could be reconciled. Despite their differences, they are both working
shoulder to shoulder for New Profile.

Another woman talked about her daughter being sentenced to four consecutive jail terms, totaling seven months, for refusing military service. She was told that if she refused to wear a uniform in prison that she would serve her term in solitary confinement.

At our evening debriefing, delegation members reported being deeply moved by the insights and commitments of the Avnerys and those working with New Profile. Many delegates had not been aware of the deep divisions in Israeli society over issues such as the Gaza Disengagement Plan and the role of the military. We headed off to bed exhausted from jet lag and an overdose of information and impressions, but grateful for the ongoing and inspiring work of so many people struggling for peace.

Report submitted by Scott Kennedy for the delegation