Passports to progress (Daniel Barenboim)

Dear friends,

In the spirit of conductor Barenboim's call for non-violent resistance against the occupation, I pass the attached photo from our Al-Quds newspaper...it was taken in the village of Bilin.

Barenboim's article below is powerful, albeit I would take issue with the automatic assumption that a state, any state, has a right to be "Jewish," "Muslim," "Christian," or otherwise.

Snowed in, thinking of loved ones in Gaza (+50% population under 18) without lights, heat or gas,
Sam

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Comment

Passports to progress

Israelis and Palestinians alike should join me in taking dual citizenship - for we share one destiny

Daniel Barenboim
Wednesday January 30, 2008

Guardian

I have often said that the destinies of the Israeli and Palestinian people are inextricably linked and that there is no military solution to the conflict. My recent acceptance of Palestinian nationality has given me the opportunity to demonstrate this more tangibly.

When my family moved to Israel from Argentina in the 1950s, one of my parents' intentions was to spare me the experience of growing up as part of a minority - a Jewish minority. They wanted to me to grow up as part of a majority - a Jewish majority. The tragedy of this is that my generation, despite having been educated in a society whose positive aspects and human values have greatly enriched my thinking, ignored the existence of a minority within Israel - a non-Jewish minority - which had been the majority in the whole of Palestine until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Part of the non-Jewish population remained in Israel, and other parts left out of fear or were forcefully displaced.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there was and still is an inability to admit the interdependence of their two voices. The creation of the state of Israel was the result of a Jewish-European idea which, if it is to extend its leitmotif into the future, must accept the Palestinian identity as an equally valid leitmotif. The demographic development is impossible to ignore; the Palestinians within Israel are a minority but a rapidly growing one, and their voice needs to be heard now more than ever. They now make up approximately 22% of the population of Israel. This is a larger percentage than was ever represented by a Jewish minority in any country in any period of history. The total number of Palestinians living within Israel and in the occupied territories (that is, greater Israel for the Israelis or greater Palestine for the Palestinians) is already larger than the Jewish population.

At present Israel is confronted with three problems: the nature of the modern democratic Jewish state - its very identity; the problem of Palestinian identity within Israel; and the problem of the creation of a Palestinian state outside of Israel. With Jordan and Egypt it was possible to attain what can best be described as an ice-cold peace without questioning Israel's existence as a Jewish state. The problem of the Palestinians within Israel is a much more challenging one to solve, theoretically and practically. For Israel it means, among other things, coming to terms with the fact that the land was not barren or empty, "a land without a people" - an idea that was propagated at the time of its creation. For the Palestinians, it means accepting the fact that Israel is a Jewish state and is here to stay.

Israelis must accept the integration of the Palestinian minority, even if it means changing certain aspects of the nature of Israel; they must also accept the justification for and necessity of the creation of a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel. Not only is there no alternative, or magic wand, that will make the Palestinians disappear, but their integration is an indispensable condition - on moral, social, and political grounds - for the very survival of Israel.

The longer the occupation continues and Palestinian dissatisfaction remains unaddressed, the more difficult it is to find even elementary common ground. We have seen so often in the modern history of the Middle East that missed opportunities for reconciliation have had extremely negative results for both sides.

For my part, when the Palestinian passport was offered to me, I accepted it in the spirit of acknowledging the Palestinian destiny which I, as an Israeli, share. A true citizen of Israel must reach out to the Palestinian people with openness, and at the very least an attempt to understand what the creation of the state of Israel has meant to them.

May 15 1948 is the day of independence for the Jews, but the same day is al-Nakba, the catastrophe, for the Palestinians. A true citizen of Israel must ask himself what the Jews, known as an intelligent people of learning and culture, have done to share their cultural heritage with the Palestinians. A true citizen of Israel must also ask himself why the Palestinians have been condemned to live in slums and accept lower standards of education and medical care, rather than being provided by the occupying force with decent, dignified and liveable conditions - a right common to all human beings.

In any occupied territory, the occupiers are responsible for the quality of life of the occupied, and in the case of the Palestinians, the different Israeli governments over the past 40 years have failed miserably. The Palestinians, naturally, must continue to resist the occupation and all attempts to deny them basic individual needs and statehood. However, for their own sake, this resistance must not express itself through violence. Crossing the boundary from adamant resistance (including non-violent demonstrations and protests) to violence only results in more innocent victims, and does not serve the long-term interests of the Palestinian people.

At the same time, the citizens of Israel have just as much cause to be alert to the needs and rights of the Palestinian people (both within and outside Israel) as they have to their own. After all, in the sense that we share one land and one destiny, we should all have dual citizenship.

· Daniel Barenboim is a conductor and pianist, and co-author with Edward Said of Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society danielbarenboim.com

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2248820,00.html

Bush Peace Hallucinations Continue

U.S. President George Bush landed in Israel yesterday on his first Presidential trip to the country. He participated in a press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in what both men termed a “historic” and “monumental” occasion. After listening to both so-called leaders make their opening comments and fielding questions from journalists, the only groundbreaking revelation I could register was that the naiveté of President Bush, either real or a charade, only served the agenda of one party in the region - Hamas. The radical Islamists at Hamas could not have recruited a better cheerleader for their movement if they tried.


My opinion may be extreme, but then again, I live in an extremely violent limbo under Israeli military occupation, shaped by a policy both men continuously refuse to call by its true name – state terror.


Again, my opinion is certainly subjective - but then again, I started my day by reading a communique from the real world: a report issued from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs titled, Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report: Power Shortages In The Gaza Strip (8 January 2008). The report states the background of the issue; on 28 June 2006 the Israeli Air Force bombed the power plant in the Gaza Strip destroying all six transformers and cutting 43% of Gaza’s total power capacity. The report says “households in the Gaza Strip are now experiencing regular power cuts” and goes on to note that “the irregular [electricity] supply causes additional problems. Running water in Gaza is only available in most households for around eight hours per day. If there is no power when water is available, it cannot be pumped above ground level, reducing the availability of running water to between four and six hours per day.” The result of this single punitive measure, as stated in this report, is that if Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility “cannot provide its own emergency power supply because of its own fuel shortages, it has to pump raw sewage into the sea which damages the coastline in Gaza, southern Israel and Egypt.”


In another report, released the same day, the World Food Program spokesperson Kirstie Campbell says 70 percent of the population of Gaza has to choose between putting food on the table or a roof over their heads.


For President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert, the fallout expected from the information in these disturbing reports, released one day before President Bush arrived in Israel, was not even worthy of worry. As a matter of fact, the reality that Israel has successfully placed 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, over 50% of them children, in the dark and under the most draconian siege in recent history did not even make it to the footnotes of either leader’s comments.


Instead, much more important issues were on Bush’s agenda. The need to realize and work on a “vision” for the future was in the forefront of President Bush’s mind. According to President Bush, "the parties" should now sit down and "negotiate a vision" – the parties being Israel, the 4th strongest military might in the world and a 40+ year occupier, and the Palestinians, the yet-to-be state of an occupied and displaced people who have been dispossessed by the State of Israel for 60 years and while on the receiving end of a brutal Israeli military occupation for over four decades.


Both Bush and Olmert did send one united message to the world. The two-state solution was still the aim of the negotiations. Reading between the lines, we can infer that the specter of a single state, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, is the most frightening vision of all. The terrifying notion of Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) and Israelis (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) living side by side with equal national and civil rights, has never been so apparent since the struggle in South Africa to end racist white supremacy under Apartheid. To ensure that a one-state solution does not materialize in historic Palestine, the U.S. and Israel talk about a two-state solution, but meantime, the U.S. bankrolls Israel as it continues to create facts on the ground that make any viable Palestinian state impossible.


Prime Minister Olmert was clear beyond a doubt: President Bush has been very, very good for Israel. Olmert was nearly jumping for joy as he praised President Bush for increasing the comprehensive U.S. aid package to Israel to a whopping $30 billion.


The issue of Israeli settlement-building in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, was raised repeatedly by journalists asking questions. Again, Israel’s Olmert made no excuses; Jerusalem is different, he said, and no one should expect settlements to stop there. As for the other settlements, he said it was complicated and began elucidating the lexicon of "outposts," "population centers," etc. If only this entire settlement enterprise were not threatening Israel’s very own citizens and future, Olmert’s blather would have made excellent comedy material – not to mention President Bush’s weird facial expressions as he sought to evade the barrage of questions asking if the U.S. was ready to apply pressure on Israel to make good on its talk of freezing settlements. The best President Bush was able to come up with impromptu was to remind us all that Israel has been promising for over four years to stop settlements but has yet to do so. Even that came with a chuckle, as if the human tragedy these settlements are causing was a side show. Rarely has Mr. Bush given so persuasive an impression of being detached not just from the facts but from any sort of empathy for the victims of this appalling situation.


All in all, it looks like President Bush came to Israel to speak about Iran. Not only did Mr. Bush seem much more enthused about threatening Iran from Israel; his glaring inability to articulate a basic understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli issue left seasoned Israeli journalists chuckling in disbelief at the President’s replies. The local press corps noted every opportunity seized by Olmert to hitch a ride on each one of President Bush’s superficial comments, lauding the importance of the Bush visit, the Bush commitment to peace, and the Bush courage in confronting the region's difficulties.


Well, next President Bush arrives in my Israeli-occupied city of Al-Bireh/Ramallah. He plans to land two blocks away from my home, in a sports field where I happen to be developing as a commercial project for the Friends (Quaker) School. We were notified today that our street will be one of the many that will be under 100% lockdown. We were advised we would be risking our lives if we went to our rooftop to watch the charade unfold. Public notices from the Palestinian police chief warned that absolutely no protests would be tolerated. In short, we were told to stay indoors. Even our local newspaper advised a civil society campaign I work with that an ad we submitted to be published in today’s newspaper, conveying a message to Bush via a cartoon, would require special approval from the newspaper’s management, given the special circumstance that Bush is in town. (As I write, I’m being advised that our ad**, as is, was refused!) So much for running a business, economic development, and freedom of the press. So much for Palestinian democracy too.


As an American and a Palestinian, if I could advise Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on how to greet President Bush today, I would ask him to declare the end of the Palestinian Authority, which Israel has consciously and systematically destroyed. I would ask him to announce that the Palestinians will not accept Rambo-style diplomacy and will revert to international law as the only reference point for resolving the conflict. I would ask President Abbas to request America’s support for non-violent resistance against 60 years of dispossession and 40 years of military occupation by calling for a strategy of boycotting, divestment and sanctions*** on Israel until Israel joins the community of law-abiding nations.


But that’s not all. If I were President Abbas I would tell the world that the Palestinian people will remain committed to the two-state solution until the end of 2008, and after that, if the international community fails yet again to end this nightmare of occupation, the Palestinian people will return to their original strategy of calling for one democratic secular state, where Palestinians and Israelis of all religions can live in dignity and mutual respect as equals - one person, one vote, with appropriate arrangements for cultural autonomy for all.


President Abbas could lead now, or we could all sit and wait amid the increasing numbers of funerals, until the climax of the reality forced upon us by Israeli policy engenders a violent path to the same one-state solution that so many fear.


* See www.ochaopt.org
** Newspaper ad refused by Al-Quds Newspaper is the one at top of this article or may be viewed at http://www.epalestine.com/Bush_visiting_Palestine_highres.jpg.
*** See www.bds-palestine.net and www.bigcampaign.org


- Sam Bahour is a business consultant and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.