Published by Americans for The Link Middle East Understanding, Inc. Volume 39, Issue 2 Link Archives: www.ameu.org April-May 2006 Inside the Anti-Occupation Camp By Michel Warschawski At the end of February 2006, I was in Bil’in. It’s a small Palestinian village located about a hundred yards from the separation barrier that Israel has built on the vil- lagers’ land. On the other side of the barrier, huge bulldoz- ers are expanding the Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit. The local committee of Bil’in and its Jewish partners in the struggle against the barrier had convened a two-day in- ternational conference on “non-violent struggle against the wall and the settlements.” Two hundred or so Palestinian, Israeli and international activists were having lively and fruitful discussions on strategies for a joint mobilization against the settlement policy of the Israeli government. —Continued on Page 3 The Link Page 2 AMEU Board of Directors Jane Adas (Vice President) Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. Atwater, Bradley & Partners, Inc. Michel Warschawski—better Edward Dillon known to his Israeli and Palestin- ian friends as Mikado—is a Polish John Goelet Frenchman and a rabbi’s son, Richard Hobson, Jr. who went to Israel at age 16 to Vice President, Olayan America Corp. study the Talmud. He became a Anne R. Joyce journalist and peace activist, one of those rare writers who puts his Kendall Landis (Treasurer) body where his words are. Robert L. Norberg (President) In 1984, along with Palestinian Hon. Edward L. Peck Former U.S. Ambassador and Israeli activists, he co- founded the Alternative Informa- Lachlan Reed Michel Warschawski President, Lachlan International tion Center (A.I.C.). It combines Talcott W. Seelye grassroots activism with critical movement to see how it arose Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria research, analysis, discussions, and where it might be headed in a Donald L. Snook and the dissemination of informa- post-Sharon, post-Fatah standoff. tion on Palestine-Israel. James M. Wall His answer reminds us that the In 1987, Warschawski was role of the prophet in Israel was AMEU National Council arrested by Shin Bet. Security not so much to predict the future Hon. James E. Akins agents ransacked his A.I.C. office, as it was to confront the abomina- Isabelle Bacon then took him off to their notorious tions of the present. William R. Chandler cell number 20, a no-holds-barred Two of Warschawski’s recent David S. Dodge prison where, until 1999, torture books—“Toward an Open Tomb: Paul Findley was practiced legally on a daily Dr. Cornelius B. Houk The Crisis of Israeli Society” and Cynthia Infantino basis. For 15 days the rabbi’s son “On the Border”—are available O. Kelly Ingram refused to give up the names of from our catalog on pages 14-15. his Palestinian counterparts, of Moorhead Kennedy AMEU has been offering Ann Kerr leaders of the student movement, books on the Middle East, often John J. McCloy II of trade unionists, or of activists in hard-to-come-by books, for most David Nes the women’s organizations. He of its 39 years. The program was Mary Norton was eventually indicted, tried and C. Herbert Oliver begun by co-founder Dr. Henry sentenced, spending eight Marie Petersen Fischer, who initially used his ga- months in jail. Dr. John C. Trever rage to stock the books. That was Don W. Wagner Today Michel Warschawski back in the 1970’s. Dr. Fischer, Miriam Ward, RSM continues his struggle for peace whose fulltime job was Curator of Executive Director and justice. Now, however, he Egyptology at the Metropolitan labors against a political back- John F. Mahoney Museum of Art in New York City, ground that has changed drasti- remained active on our board of cally—for Palestinians and Is- directors until his death this past AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) grants raelis. What does this mean for permission to reproduce material January. A testimonial to his from The Link in part or in whole. those seeking real peace with real memory is found on page 13. justice? We asked the veteran AMEU must be credited and one copy forwarded to our office at 475 journalist/activist to look back at John F. Mahoney, Riverside Drive, Room 245, New the history of Israel’s peace York, New York 10115-0245. Tel. Executive Director 212-870-2053; Fax 212-870-2050; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.ameu.org. The Link Page 3 (Continued from Page 1) cupation from its first days were identified—and At the end of the conference, the participants mostly were—not only as being against the occupa- went to demonstrate at the barrier—at this place it is tion, but being anti-Zionists, too. For they failed to a wide system of fences and barbed wire, not a wall. share one of the main components of Zionist ideol- Contrary to its usual mode of responding, the army ogy and the culture of those days, namely, that the did not attack us with tear gas and rubber bullets, state of Israel is, and always has been, the victim of maybe because so many foreigners were present. At Arab aggression, while never itself an aggressor. the end of the demonstration, the general director of This is why, until the end of the Sixties, opposi- the Palestinian ministry of agriculture addressed the tion to the occupation was fully identified with the participants and hailed the presence, among others, anti-Zionist “Matzpen” group, a small socialist or- of the Israeli peace camp. “We are not a ‘peace ganization founded in 1962. In 1969, while a soldier camp!’” whispered a young activist behind me, “We in the Israeli army, I was interrogated for many days are the anti-occupation camp!” about my links with “Matzpen” simply because The concept “Israeli peace camp,” like many con- someone had drawn graffiti on the barracks wall cepts, has had its ups and downs. In these days, it with the slogan “Down with Occupation.” Such a has lost much of its popularity, which lasted for no slogan could have come only from Matzpen! more than two decades. Will it have a second Peace activities in those days were limited to de- chance? It is much too early to say. nouncing the Israeli occupation, demanding the un- conditional restitution of the occupied lands to the Against Occupation countries from which they were conquered, and as- When I first became involved in the struggle serting the existence of a Palestinian people and the against the Israeli occupation, just after the June 1967 legitimacy of their national liberation struggle. war, I joined an “anti-occupation organization” not a The issue of peace was raised for the first time in peace movement. That concept had never existed in 1970, when Israeli prime minister Golda Meir barred Israel, and not by accident. A peace movement de- Nahum Goldman, chairman of the World Jewish mands that a government stop war and make peace Congress, from meeting Gamal Abdul Nasser. Nas- with the enemy. But, from 1948 to 1982, the vast ma- ser had recently made several statements in favor of jority of the Israeli public considered that war was peace with Israel, and a hundred or so high school imposed upon Israel by the Arab states and that the students had asked publicly if the continuous war Jewish state was merely protecting itself against the situation was indeed the result of Arab rejectionism, danger of eradication. Even the 1956 war against or rather a political choice on the part of the Israeli Egypt, conducted jointly with Great Britain and government. These young Israelis even asked, in a France to regain control of the Suez Canal, was per- widely publicized call, if they should refuse to do ceived as a preemptive war against alleged threats of their military duty as long as their own government an attack by Gamal Abdul Nasser. was not ready to consider the possibility of peace The 1967 war was also perceived as a preemptive with its most important Arab enemy. The “Goldman war against an Arab attack. Only a few dozen Israeli affair” was the first time Israeli society started chal- officials knew that was not the case. Four decades lenging the myth of “we have no choice but to make later, and despite plenty of documentation and inter- war for our very existence.” views, the great majority of the Israeli public still be- But a real war was necessary to make this chal- lieves that in both 1956 and 1967 Israel was forced lenge a mass phenomenon. The war of October 1973 into wars of self-defense. marked the beginning of the end of the old national In fact, even the June 1967 occupation of the West consensus. The Egyptian-Syrian offensive was a total Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights surprise for the government. Both the army and pub- was for years considered an unavoidable conse- lic opinion were fooled by the feeling of unlimited quence of Arab aggression against Israel. This is pre- power generated by the victory of June 1967. In 1973, cisely why those few Israelis who denounced the oc- however, Israel came to experience its most severe The Link Page 4 military defeat and, thanks only to massive U.S. aid, summit between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem did its army succeed in reversing the situation on the Begin and Egyptian President Sadat, dozens of mass battlefield. As a result, the Labor leadership, which demonstrations, mobilizing over 150,000 Israeli Jews, had been in power for almost half a century, first in gave Begin the backing necessary to fight his own the Zionist movement and then in the state, now lost political camp in order to withdraw from Sinai and much of its credibility.