MB Civic

Chicago Tribune May 21, 2006
The misbegotten labeling of reality in the Middle East
By Emily L. Hauser
TEL AVIV — In Hebrew, there’s a phrase: “likro et ha’yeled b’shmo,” that
means to call a child by its name. That is, to tell the truth about
something that is not pleasant. Unsurprising for a people known, as
Israelis are, for their disarming candor.
Yet, like politicians around the world, Israel’s prime ministers also have
demonstrated a striking capacity for abusing semantics, and its people
have shown an astonishing willingness to accept their words. Thus, last
summer, Ariel Sharon called his retreat-in-the-face-of-defeat from Gaza a
“disengagement.” And now the most recent example: “convergence.”
“Convergence” is the name newly elected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has
given his government’s proposal to unilaterally withdraw from parts of the
West Bank. It was a word I heard over and over as I recently traveled the
length and breadth of Israel, from a windy Galilee picnic to dinner on my
sister-in-law’s desert kibbutz, and a good handful of truck stops in
between.
After three weeks of it, I wanted to demand of my countrymen that we call
this ugly child by its singularly ugly name: annexation.
In a move being touted as an act of enormous sacrifice, Olmert has just
sworn in a government predicated on the notion of evacuating some 70,000
settlers from the West Bank, about eight times the number removed from
Gaza.
What he isn’t saying is this: About 180,000 settlers will remain right
where they are–and the 70,000 will be encouraged to join them–in massive
settlement blocs that! already slice through the Palestinian West Bank,
making ever dimmer any hope of territorial continuity for the future
Palestinian state.
Olmert’s borders will surround these blocs, “ending” occupation by
transforming them into Israel proper and, he maintains, allowing the
military to better protect the settlers by putting them in more easily
defended, larger groups.
Uprooting communities
The Israeli proposal involves pulling down towns, uprooting communities,
dismantling lives lived long and hard won. It also could cost some $10
billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report. It can be assumed that
when he comes to Washington this week to meet with the president and talk
to Congress, Olmert’s cap will be in hand.
The intent of the program, he recently told The Wall Street Journal, is to
establish perma! nent, i nternationally recognized borders, whether or not
Hamas proves itself amenable to negotiations with his government. Olmert
is saying that these steps will lead to peace.
The evacuation is being presented to Israelis as hitkansut, often
translated as convergence. In Hebrew, the word carries a sense of
coming-in, circling the wagons. It is not withdrawal from the land, the
word suggests; it is pulling together land that is rightfully ours. Only,
it’s not.
Israel is planning the annexation of enormous pieces of land it conquered
and occupied in war. When it signed on to the Bush-backed “road map” peace
plan, the Sharon government agreed to freeze all settlement expansion and
do nothing to prejudice final status talks. Yet Israel ! never a ctually
did so; it kept building new homes, carving out new roads and throwing up
a towering barrier (maintaining it was free to ignore its commitment
because the Palestinian Authority failed on its end to bring a halt to
Palestinian violence). “Convergence” is simply a formalized, spun version
of this same old, same old.
Many Israelis genuinely believe that the government’s actions have been
justified because the return of any occupied land is an act of largesse.
Yet I still cannot understand how any thinking person could believe that
unilaterally declaring final borders could lead to peace–or that the
Palestinians, fighting decades for the land in question, will quietly
accept a decision that treats them as if they don’t exist.
Misconceptions about Israel
There is a Western tendency to think of Israel as a land of Orthodox
believers and kibbutz farmers, but it’s actually a highly urbanized
society where only a fifth of the Jews define themselves as religious.
It’s a land of high-tech genius, too much caffeine and a general addiction
to the news. Israelis will challenge every word out of your mouth until
you can stand behind it 100 percent.
Unless you tell them an Arab wants them dead. Then, many–by no means all,
but far too many–will accept the political twisting of their language
until words no longer mean what they mean, and believe that the patently
unworkable will keep them safe.
Or, as Israeli columnist Gideon Levy recently wrote in Israel’s paper of
record, Haaretz, “The [national] discourse continues to foster Israel’s
most deeply rooted national! aspira tion–to have the cake and eat it,
too.”
I’m both an American and an Israeli; though I currently live in the U.S.,
Israel is my home. As I traveled last month through the glory that is an
Israeli spring, the shocking blue sky, the brilliant red of anemones
scattered through fields and along highways, I felt the never-distant ache
for peace and security and hope sharpen and all but slice through my
chest.
I can only pray that my American government will not finance this folly,
this misbegotten relabeling of reality that my Israeli government is
trying to foist on me and mine.
If they do, I am certain, peace will only move immeasurably further from
our grasp.
[American-Israeli Emily L. Hauser has written about the contemporary
Middle East for more than 15 years. She spent most of Apri! l traveling
through Israel; she lives in Oak Park.]
***
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_i
d= 24289 The Daily Star (Lebanon)       Wednesday, May 10, 2006
In the end, it’s the children who pay
By Cesar Chelala
The decision by the United States, the European Union and Canada to cut
financial assistance to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, after the
Islamist group won the January Palestinian legislative elections, not only
fails to respect the results of a clean and democratic electoral process;
more ominously, it will further harm Palestinian children, already
punished by the effects of Israel’s occupation of their land.
Following the 2000 intifada, Israeli government policies have had a
markedly negative effect on Palestinians, but more especially over
children’s health and quality of life. A policy of widespread closures has
paralyzed the Palestinian health care system and become a form of
collective punishment that has turned children into the main victims.
Severe disruption of health care has affected over 500,000 children,
particularly immunization programs, dental examinations and early
diagnosis activities. The deterioration of water and sanitation services
has given rise to an increase in the frequency of water-borne diseases. It
is estimated that over 50 percent of children living in Gaza suffer from
parasitic infections.
A persistent climate of violence has resulted in 745 children being killed
since September 28, 2000, while 435 are still in detention. Children’s
basic rights, guaranteed under international conventions to which Israel
is party, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
are systematically violated by the Israeli government.
A study carried out by the Gaza Community Mental Health Program on
children’s reaction to war has found that 33 percent of primary school age
children have acute levels of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and
49 percent moderate levels. The symptoms of PTSD include nightmares,
attention deficits and violent behavior. Less than 3 percent of children
surveyed had no symptoms of PTSD. Children living in an area of refugee
camps north of Gaza city were found more likely to experience PTSD.
People in the West Bank and Gaza continue to be victims of ongoing
violence and serious economic decline. It is estimated that 64 percent of
Gazans are living below the poverty line, and around a quarter of them are
living in deep poverty, a situation that puts children’s health and
psychosocial well-being under severe strain. UNICEF stated in 2005 that,
“The combination of significant distress and long-lasting effects of
rising poverty and unemployment is having an extremely negative effect on
all basic human development indicators.”
A survey carried out by UNICEF found that less than two-thirds of children
have acquired the needed immunity. Also according to UNICEF estimates,
more than 25 infants per every 1,000 of those born alive die before the
age of one in the Occupied Territories, a situation that is even worse in
the Gaza Strip.
Three out of 10 children under five years of age are anemic, while
stunting (height for age) stands at 9.0 percent and wasting (weight for
height) at 2.5 percent. These high levels of stunting reflect a
protein-deficient diet caused by the increasing difficulties Palestinians
face in obtaining healthy foods on a regular basis. Food insecurity has
also led to vitamin and micro-nutrients deficiencies both in children and
adults. Child malnutrition rates are as bad as those in some sub-Saharan
countries.
In this context, the comments of Dov Weissglas, a senior Israeli
government adviser have been totally lacking in human concerns. At a
recent meeting with other high Israeli officials Weissglas said, “It’s
like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot
thinner, but they won’t starve.”
A recent editorial in Haaretz stated, “The unsuccessful comments by Dov
Weissglas – whose position and source of authority in the present
government is difficult to understand – regarding the need to put the
Palestinian nation on a diet, but not to starve it, symbolizes more than
anything the humiliating way in which Israel relates to the Palestinians,
which was one of the factors in Hamas’ rise to power. It
is unnecessary and degrading to recommend a diet to a hungry and
unemployed nation, in addition to which Israel is still responsible for
preventing hunger in all parts of the West Bank that it controls as an
occupying power.”
As things stand now, there is something perverse about making children
pawns in a complex political game. It is urgent, therefore, that both
funds being retained by Israel as well as international aid from the U.S.,
the EU and Canada be redirected to organizations such as the World Health
Organization and UNICEF. They have expertise in the region and know how to
make the best use of those funds, which should be addressed to solving the
most pressing needs of the Palestinians, particularly the children, the
most vulnerable among them.
—
Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant and winner of
an Overseas Press Club of America award. He wrote this commentary for The
Daily Star.
***
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