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Coalition for Peace with Justice
Remarks- NC 2002 -International Human Rights Award [to CPWJ Letters page] [ to CPWJ home page] [Editor's note: on February 27, 2003 Mary Lou Leiser Smith, Coordinator of the Coalition for Peace with Justice, was given the International Human Rights Award for 2002. This is an annual award given by the Human Rights Coalition of North Carolina. This is Mary Lou's acceptance speech.]In these uncertain and discouraging times, it is indeed a celebration to come together to lift up the dignity and worth of humankind all over the world. I am deeply grateful for this honor, for its meaning in my life, for the opportunities it presents to us here in the Triangle and in North Carolina, and for the affirmation of peace – a peace WITH JUSTICE. Indeed, I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for you. As I look around this room, I want to acknowledge my family, my church family, many friends, leaders and workers in various groups and communities. You are the ones who have affirmed my work and me. – and YOU are the ones who continue to affirm me. I am truly thankful for that – a real celebration! I also celebrate our coming together from our varied perspectives and walks of life around the unifying goal of a just and lasting peace in Israel and Palestine. We may hold diverse opinions about the crisis in Palestine and Israel and about the solutions, but I’m sure we can all agree on THE UNIFYING THEME OF HUMAN RIGHTS. We can all – indeed we must all, if we are going to have any impact – unite our efforts around the dignity and worth of every individual – be they Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, Muslim, Christian, or Jew! Let’s put HUMAN back in the equation. And, let’s emphasize the EQUALITY sign in that equation. This premise leads us to address the undeniable fact that Palestinians have been treated as sub-human, as less deserving of an education, of medical care, of the ability to work and care for their families. All human rights groups – Israeli groups like B’Tselem, Palestinian groups like Badil and LAW, international groups like Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights – document these facts. In short, Palestinians have been demonized and humiliated. They have been treated as not worthy of freedom of movement, nor the right to live and work on the land that has been theirs for generations. It’s time that we speak out, that we refuse to be silenced by official US policy and cries of some fellow Americans: “Israel is fighting terrorism.” “Israel needs to retaliate.” “Israel is using restraint.” And the often-heard cry of: “Be balanced in your presentation!” These are all covers for the reality on the ground. How can we be balanced when the situation is totally OUT OF BALANCE? By pointing out the injustices, what we are doing is rectifying an imbalance. Another often-heard cry is: “Israel’s existence and security is at stake!” Indeed, this is precisely the issue and one that I feel strongly about. Israeli policy (not just that of the Sharon government) – with full US backing (not just that of the Bush government)– will never bring the peace and security that it so desires. I want Israel to exist and be secure, just as I want Palestine (as a COHESIVE, VIABLE ENTITY) to exist and be secure. Israel’s future, its existence and security depend on full acceptance of Palestinians as EQUAL human beings with EQUAL human rights. I’d like to digress for a moment to explain how I’ve come to hold this position. My understanding and response have been shaped by three pivotal experiences on my first trip to Israel and the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES of Palestine. (Yes, I will call them OCCUPIED – the basis of which is international law.) The first was a visit to the Israeli settlement of Efrat, south of Bethlehem. Our host was Bob Lang, a former resident of the state of New York. We were told before meeting him that he was active, lobbying in the Knesset for Israeli settlements. We soon learned that he was a polished politician. Bob Lang produced elaborate charts showing the history of the area and implying how it rightfully belonged to the Jews. The area was Judea and Samaria, the Biblical terms – not the Occupied Territories. Bob Lang lives in a 3-bedroom, free-standing house with his wife from New Zealand and a baby. We know it is economically attractive for Israelis to live in settlements, as they are heavily subsidized by the Israeli government, using your and my tax money. Leaving Efrat, we toured the area, observing the landscaped and irrigated gardens, the tennis and basketball courts, the schools and grocery stores. Indeed it is a self-contained village of paved roads and neat little houses in a row – ever-expanding to include 7 mountaintops – to fulfill the vision of a rabbi from New York. Last week yet another expansion of Efrat took place. And for those of you who know of Hope Flowers School, it is this settlement that threatens the very existence of this peace-oriented school. Our next stop was Deheishe refugee camp. Bob Lang had referred to the deplorable state of the Palestinian refugee camp next door, but shrugged off the situation by blaming the UN for not administering things better. Palestinian refugees were not his problem, nor the problem of the Israeli government, but as I soon learned, the access to the settlement by way of the road in front of the refugee camp was indeed THEIR PROBLEM! While we waited for our translator at Deheishe camp, I befriended Ahmad, our Palestinian van driver. I had been amazed that Ahmad accepted the invitation from Bob Lang to enter his home in the settlement. I had watched Ahmad’s body language and empathized with his discomfort, knowing his grandparents had been driven off the land in 1948 from one of the over 500 destroyed Palestinian villages. Growing up in East Jerusalem under Israeli occupation, this young man was observing the luxury and freedom of an Israeli settler from the United States, who was indirectly responsible for his lack of freedom. With our translator, we walked through the narrow dirt streets of Deheishe to the humble home of Abu Nidal. Here, 3 generations – not 3 people were housed! Here, all 16 of us were invited for tea made with water received every 3 weeks and stored in the tanks above the house. We learned of the Israeli soldiers shooting their 16 year-old son, the lack of medical care, and the ignorance of Americans when the father brought the son to the US for medical care. Alas, all the attempts to save the boy’s life were futile and he died. Subsequently, another son was arrested and imprisoned at Ansar Prison in the Negev without charge. Administrative detention is for 6 months and often renewed for another 6 months. Across the West Bank and Gaza today, while the world has its eyes on Iraq, hundreds upon hundreds of families are having their homes searched and loved ones taken to prison, without access to legal advice. Families are not allowed to visit and cell phones have been confiscated. The treatment of prisoners has been brutal. Returning to the bus with my Palestinian driver-friend, I was startled to hear a loud SHOT, then screeching tires, and acceleration. I looked up to see an Israeli settler beside a white Mercedes with a gun pointed into the refugee camp. Fortunately, he had not injured the child who had thrown the stone. The drama evolved into yet another scene: The white Mercedes sped off, heading directly into a Palestinian truck carrying cement building blocks. The truck screeched to a halt, avoiding the car and spilling cement blocks all over the road. The Mercedes escaped into the horizon. The next day the newspaper carried an article justifying the need for Israeli settlers to have their own access roads to the settlements, as it was too dangerous to use the roads through Palestinian areas. Specifically, the article cited a Palestinian truck attempting a head-on collision with an Israeli car! Could this possibly be referring to the same incident? And to think the US has funded these 250 miles of by-pass roads criss-crossing the West Bank for Israeli use only, to the tune of $1.2 Billion above the regular foreign aid granted to Israel. The third pivotal experience grew out of my teaching English as a Foreign Language at Hope Secondary School in Beit Jala. I was welcomed warmly by the 7th-11th grades. But, when it came to the 12th grade – mostly males – they got up and walked out, saying “ENGLISH IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE ENEMY.” Bing! – a light bulb went off. These boys had been deeply affected by the first Intifada (meaning: uprising or resistance, NOT VIOLENCE). They knew, better than I, of US unqualified support of Israel diplomatically, politically, and economically. They also knew and I was soon to find out that American-made weaponry was used by Israel against them. Later I picked up a tear gas canister made in Pennsylvania near Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. With these 3 experiences, you have the picture: refugees, settlements, and US policy. FIRST, let’s look at Palestinian refugees from 1948, living in 59 refugee camps scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza as well as the neighboring countries. Here we touch the history of Palestinian dispossession – a part of Israeli policy that has continued to this very day – slowly and deliberately through Israeli control of Palestinian life: confiscation of Jerusalem ID cards, home demolitions, land confiscation, closing of Palestinian markets, schools, and universities. Who would want to live under these conditions? Let’s look at the Refugee Question and remind ourselves that the unifying issue is Human Rights. Let’s look to UN Resolution 194 and the basic human right to home and homeland. Right now Palestinians fear that Israel will exploit the world’s preoccupation with the war on Iraq to carry out “transfer,” which really is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. “Transfer” is openly discussed in the Knesset. Slogans appearing across the country read “No Arabs, no attacks”; “Transfer Equals Peace”; and “Palestine is Jordan.” Ariel Sharon rejected Jordan’s request that he issue a public declaration opposing “transfer?” Why? (Ha’aretz Daily 11/29/02). SECONDLY – The question of settlements and the Israeli illegal military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem since 1967. Whether Labor or Likud governments have been in power, settlement expansion has continued. Settlements are indeed “An Occupation Set in Stone.” There are currently over 400,000 settlers living in these Palestinian areas who are entitled to military protection. Together with the by-pass roads, these settlements break up the territory into pieces – all of which preclude a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. Security has been the cover-up used by the Israeli government to produce the separation wall, known by the justice community as the apartheid wall. Soon the West Bank will be a prison like Gaza, with total Israeli control surrounding it. Let’s look more closely at this “separation wall”: It’s a GIANT concrete wall, 2x the height of the Berlin Wall, with barbed wire and watchtowers. It is expected to be finished this year (2003)! The wall is not on the Green Line, but will annex 10% more land from the West Bank, contrary to signed agreements with Israel. The wall will annex 57 illegal settlements with 303,000 Israeli settlers while displacing 400,000 Palestinians who will be separated from neighbors, family, farm lands, work, villages, and cities by the wall. Wall construction began this week near Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. Christian leaders have appealed to the international community to speak up. And Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc says: [The WALL] “= Ghetto for Palestinians, a disaster for Israelis” “As long as the occupation continues…no wall will help. A border of peace will do away with the need for a wall.” Peace initiatives since the breakdown of the Oslo Accords have been meaningless as they have concentrated on the cessation of violence, rather than the root causes of violence. The Quartet peace plan and statements of a 2 state solution from the US government have not insisted on dismantling the settlements, withdrawal of Israeli control, and an end to the occupation. If Israeli security is based on Palestinian imprisonment, then no peace process is viable. Instead of withholding aid to Israel to force the issue, the United States is poised to give $14B this year requested by Israel. Certainly much will go to maintain the occupation and probably the wall construction as well. …Which brings us to the THIRD issue.– The role that the United States plays in maintaining and sustaining the conflict through militarization and economic domination in the Middle East, as well as its unqualified support of Israel in the international arena. If peace and human rights were our government’s agenda, the United States could have had an impact long ago. The United States totally overlooks that Israel is acting above the law: 1) above international law 2) above US law The double standard in respecting international law is evident throughout U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. º Iraq doesn’t comply with UN Security Council Resolutions, so we wage war. º Both Israel and Turkey (U.S. allies) are in violation of more UN Security Council Resolutions than Iraq. º Israel has not pulled out of the occupied territories according to Resolutions 242 & 338 (on which the Oslo peace accords were based), but the Gulf War was waged to force Iraq out of Kuwait. º Israel is in clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention to which it (& the US) are signatories. My rough count of these violations since 1967 comes to 17! How is Israel above U.S. Law? The U.S. Arms Control Act stipulates that the military equipment from the U.S. not be used against civilians, yet: º U.S. F-16’s bomb civilian areas, as happened in Gaza a few weeks ago, damaging the Al Ali Hospital and St. Phillips Church, º and US apache helicopters target individuals, while killing additional civilians as is happening today. These are clear violations. º Less obvious are tear gas and sound bombs used to disperse crowds, but also thrown deliberately into classrooms and playgrounds, as happened in Shofat Refugee camp in East Jerusalem and in Hebron recently. US military aid to Israel stipulates that 80% of $3B be used to purchase arms from US manufacturers. So who is profiting??? A conservative estimate is that $10 million per day of your and my tax money goes to Israel! Yes, $10 million – per day! Referring to the European Union funding of construction that took place in Bethlehem in preparation for the celebrations of 2000(which never happened!) a friend in Europe remarked. “ What the European taxpayer paid to build up, the American taxpayer paid to destroy!” Speaking of destroying…. Have you seen the sign at RDU airport that reads: “CATERPILLAR WELCOMES YOU TO NORTH CAROLINA We build machines to make progress possible.” Is it progress when Caterpillar bulldozers are at work daily to destroy Palestinian homes and lives? Now, I ask you, what can we do to call into question the sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel to be used as a military weapon in an illegal military occupation? Perhaps it should also come under the US Arms Control Act! From North Carolina in 2001 there were $72M in exports to Israel. $15M out of the $72M were in military contracts. According to US law, we citizens of NC have a right to hold Israel accountable for the way NC arms are used. To conclude, I’d like to point out that many refugees living in the camps today still have the key to their family home from 1948 º Can they return there? No, they are not allowed to. º Will they ever be allowed to? Who knows? º Does their home or village still exist? Probably not. So what can we draw from these hopeless responses? In the face of the unknown, in the face of despair, this key is a symbol – a key to open a door to a brighter future tomorrow. The foundation of peace is justice! I choose to seek justice, relying on the transforming power of love and hope, rather than succumbing to the hopelessness of fear. I invite you to join me in moving forward with love and hope. Justice will prevail! [to CPWJ Letters page] [ to CPWJ home page] |
