|
|
November 10, 2000/12 Heshvan 5761, Vol. 53, No.7
Soldiers in Solidarity
Valley leaders join Mission to express support for Israel
BARRY COHEN
Community Editor
Hundreds of Jews from the United States, Canada and Europe marched to the Western Wall Oct. 31 to show their solidarity with Israel during the ongoing violence in the Middle East.
Photo by Avi Hayun/JTA |
Will Zionism triumph?
As a participant in a solidarity march to the Kotel (Western Wall) Oct. 31, Rabbi William Berk of Temple Chai in Phoenix saw a number of banners on display. One of them stood out: Tzionut t'natze'ach (Zionism will triumph).
"This really got me. I got choked up at this," says Berk. "Can you imagine seeing a sign at Roadrunner Park: 'American democracy will triumph?' "
Berk says the Zionism sign revealed a level of vulnerability in the Israeli consciousness. While they possess superior firepower, he explains, the Israelis also are fearful about their very existence.
"People are on edge. They're staying away from cafés," he says.
A feeling of uncertainty is creeping into daily activities previously taken for granted, such as riding in a taxi if the driver is an Arab, Berk says. "(Israelis are beginning to wonder), 'Where's he going to take me?'"
Berk was one of six Valley participants in a United Jewish Communities solidarity mission to Israel. The others included Lanny Lahr, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix; Art Paikowsky, federation executive vice president; Herb Sperber, federation executive committee member; Sol Moretsky, president of Kivel Campus of Care; Jay Schechter, headmaster of the Jess Schwartz Community High School; and Nate Sachs, community leader.
From Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, the international coalition toured Israel, met with Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Moshe Katzav, attended briefings and visited family members of Israelis killed during the previous weeks of violence, including Vadim Norsdich and Yosef Avrahami, who were lynched in Ramallah.
The 120 UJC representatives joined others from the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Jewish National Fund, plus delegations from France, Canada and Mexico.
Valley participants said they experienced an Israel quite different from the Jewish state they have visited before. The airport, usually bustling, was quiet. A single highway is open to Jerusalem, as Palestinians have blocked all other arteries. Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda street was hushed, its restaurants, cafés and shops nearly deserted. Hotels were empty. Tourism has collapsed.
The representatives of a cross-section of Diaspora Jewish communities provided moral support, says Paikowsky.
"They need us, and that's the mes-sage we bring back. We hope that everyone in Phoenix, the entire Jewish community and non-Jewish community, will hear from us regarding what took place during these five days," says Schechter.
The Valley delegates describe themselves as returning with vital information about day-to-day life in Israel that has not been covered effectively by the Western media, such as details about Camp David, Palestinian violence, the Israeli response, how the press manipulates and is being manipulated, and about Israeli morale.
They are also crafting a plan of action for Valley residents to express their own solidarity with Israel.
Schechter says they benefited from sessions with authorities:
"Rabbi Michael Melchior (minister of Israel-Diaspora relations) spelled it out for us the first night. Israel was willing to make concessions - almost unspoken of - I mean we saw maps that were controversial beyond belief."
At a bagel brunch at Temple Chai Oct. 29, Berk translated from the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achranot: "A kilometer before reaching the target of shalom, Palestinian Authority (President Yasser) Arafat turned around, and he ran the opposite direction - against history, against the greater desire of the world, against the interests of his people and against all logic."
Paikowsky says the Israelis he talked to complained that Barak offered so much, but the Palestinians offered no compromise.
"It was like a dagger in the hearts of the majority of the people," he explains.
Quoting Melchior, Berk says the violence did not begin with opposition leader Ariel Sharon's controversial Sept. 28 visit to the Temple Mount. Rather, it began a few days prior with the shooting of Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldier Yosef Dejebbe by his Palestinian partner.
The joint Israeli-Palestinian patrol had been evidence the two peoples could cooperate and maintain the peace. The shooting, Melchior said, shed doubt on this trust.
The violence has continued for over six weeks.
Sperber says at the president's house in Jerusalem, when the delegates met with the family members of the slain Israeli soldiers, he learned that Dejebbe was "was someone they could point to and be proud."
Sperber also spoke to the father of one of the soldiers killed in Gaza: he served in the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, as well as in Lebanon.
"He said he thought he had given what he should have given. But it was not enough, and now he had to give his son," says Sperber.
"The world press tends to view Arafat as if he is (South African leader) Nelson Mandela, leading the underdogs to victory over the colonialists," says Berk. "More accurately, consider the tie between Arafat and (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein ... and you get a much clearer picture of what is going on."
"A really important point is that Arafat is sacrificing children on the altar of CNN," says Berk. He suggests calling in the United Nations, not to protect the Palestinian children from the Israelis, but to protect them from the Palestinian leadership.
In this environment, Israeli teenagers are forced to make life and death decisions.
Berk explains small numbers of highly armed Israeli soldiers face hundreds of Palestinian rioters storming heavily fortified positions. But the positions are not in the heart of Palestinian villages. Instead, the locales are at highway checkpoints, in front of small Israeli settlements, and in neighborhoods adjacent to Jerusalem or at the border itself.
Israeli soldiers, the delegates were told, continue to defend locations providing services to the Palestinians.
At the Sunday brunch, Berk spoke about two Israeli security guards who were shot to death in east Jerusalem. That detail - the location - was covered by the media, Berk says. But a fact forgotten is that the men were guarding an office that distributes pension checks to Palestinians.
Sperber relates how the Israeli soldiers receive special training and support to handle an almost untenable situation: having to use potentially lethal force against unarmed children or having to use lethal force during firefights, with teenagers caught in the crossfire.
On the trip, at Kiriat Melachi, federation's sister-city, the delegates met with high schoolers, many whom are preparing to enter the army.
Some of the students participated in a choir group that toured the United States. In April, 1999, they visited Columbine High School in Colorado, days after the tragic shooting by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
"It was amazing how easily they could identify with the kids and the tragedy," says Sperber. The Israeli students shared with the delegates how they have experience in dealing with young people getting killed.
Sperber adds that speaking with the younger kids "was an extraordinary experience." The class was filled with a mixture of Moroccans, Russians and Ethiopians, and "it pointed out the mosaic Israel represents."
At Lod, the delegates visited a retirement home where Israeli-Arabs and Israeli-Jews live together.
"I did not see any friction or conflict whatsoever," says Sachs.
"We were seeing by and large life going on as usual," adds Sperber.
Their visit to Gilo, a suburb of Jerusalem, presented another example of "life going on as usual," but with a heightened sense of security.
"We could see for ourselves the proximity from where the shots (from Palestinian gunmen) came from - how close it was," says Sachs.
The IDF erected barriers for security and brought in a tank, "more for a sense of security," says Sachs.
Sachs remarks he sensed from the Israelis that they are being more cautious in their everyday lives. An example was when he saw a small group of students walking to school with an armed guard.
A continuing discussion for the Israeli military, says Lahr, concerns the restraint soldiers are using against the Palestinian demonstrators.
Berk says the issue of "restraint" is causing great tension in the Israel Defense Forces.
"Some in the IDF are saying there's no way we can operate showing this amount of restraint because unfortunately the Palestinians read it as weakness."
Colonel David Chacham, advisor on Arab affairs to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, shared an assessment with the delegation, making the conflict even more complicated. According to Berk, Chacham said, "The Islamic religious movement is working hand in hand with Arafat. ... Their line is very clear - there is no room for a Jewish presence in Palestine."
Arafat understands the power of utilizing Islamic fundamentalism and transforming a political war into a religious war, says Berk.
Delegates say Melchior explained leaders can resolve a political disagreement; they cannot resolve a religious war.
But some observers believe the seeds of religious war may have already been sown. Paikowsky relates 300 anti-Semitic acts have been committed worldwide in the past 30 days, the greatest per month number since World War II. And the violence has not been committed against symbols of Jewish nationhood. Rather, the targets have been Jewish holy sites or Jews themselves.
"The war is being fought on many fronts," says Paikowsky, including the political and the moral.
"That being case," says Berk, "in my opinion, we are soldiers in that struggle."
Paikowsky says the federation is planning a strategy to share the information the delegation learned in Israel with the Jewish and non-Jewish community, for everyone to be "ambassadors" or "soldiers" in this effort to show solidarity with Israel.
The first such event was to be a Nov. 9 Town Hall Meeting at Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale. Because of time constraints, federation advertised primarily to the Jewish community, sending faxes and making calls to synagogues and other Jewish institutions; but the event was an open forum.
Federation intends to invite scholars and authorities to share first-hand accounts and assessments of the conflict, Paikowsky says.
In a Valleywide effort, Paikowsky says the delegates will offer to speak to synagogues and churches, Jewish community agencies, Arizona State University, ASU Hillel and Hebrew High. They will also contact local television and radio stations in an attempt to spread their message to the general community.
Paikowsky encourages Valley Jews to contact their congresspeople to encourage them to support Israel. In addition, he is promoting participation in solidarity missions, which are ongoing, departing on Sundays and returning on Fridays.
Schechter says he asked an Israeli what he most needs from the American Jewish community. The answer: "Support, to show commitment to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel)."
"If we are going to take a trip this year, it ought to be to Israel. They need to see us," says Schechter.
|
