Arabs in Palestine and Jordan predate Christianity and Islam

By DAOUD KUTTAB

The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Jordan and Palestine is a perfect opportunity to review and stress the role of Christian Arabs in the peace process and their strong support for peace with justice.
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To begin with, it is important for all to know that Arabs have been in Palestine and Jordan before the arrival of Islam and Christianity. References to the word "Arab" and its derivatives are mentioned hundreds of times in the Old and New Testaments. The biblical figure of Job is said to be Arab; Arabs were among the many attending the sermon on the Day of Pentecost by St. Peter, and were among the 3,000 who then became Christians. Acts II refers to Arabs having heard the sermon in their own tongue.

Arab Christians have, therefore, been an integral part of Palestine and the Middle East from the earliest days of the Church. The role of Arab Christians in modern Arab nationalism was best reflected in George Habib Antonius' book The Arab Awakening. Antonius (1891-1941) was one of the first historians of Arab nationalism. Born of Lebanese-Egyptian parentage and a Christian (Greek Orthodox) Arab, he served in the British Mandate of Palestine.

His 1938 book was written as Palestine was slipping from Arab control.

Antonius traced Arab nationalism to the reign of Mehmet Ali Pasha in Egypt. He argued that Arab nationalism was a product of the West, especially of Protestant missionaries from Britain and the United States. He saw the role of the American University of Beirut (originally the Syrian Protestant College) as central to this development.

In welcoming the pope at the King Hussein Mosque in Amman on Saturday, Prince Ghazi Bin Mohammad gave special reference to Arab Christians: "Christians were in Jordan 600 years before Muslims. Indeed, Jordanian Christians are perhaps the oldest Christian community in the world, and the majority have always been Orthodox, adhering to the Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, which, as Your Holiness knows better than I, is the church of St. James, and was founded during Jesus' own lifetime."

"Many of them are descended from the ancient Arab tribes of al Ghassaneh and al Khamin, and they have, throughout history, shared the fate and struggles of their fellow Muslim tribesman.

"Indeed, in 630, during the prophet's own lifetime, they joined the prophet's own army, led by his adopted son, Zeid Ben Hartheh and his cousin Jaafar Ben Abi Taleh and fought against the Byzantine army of their fellow orthodox, at the battle of Mu'ta.

"It is because of this battle, that they earned their tribal name al Azezzat, which means 'the reinforcements,' and Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal himself comes from these tribes.

"Then, in 1099, they were slaughtered by Catholic crusaders during the fall of Jerusalem, alongside their Muslim comrades."

Prince Ghazi continued: "Later from 1916 to 1918, during the Great Arab revolt, they fought against Muslim Turks, alongside Muslim Arab comrades. They thereafter languished for a few decades, along with their Muslim fellows, under a Protestant colonial mandate, and in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1967, and 1968, they fought with their Arab Muslim comrades against Jewish opponents."

STATISTICS REGARDING Arab Christians vary. Wikipedia states that Christians today make up 9.2 per cent of the population of the Near East. In Lebanon, they now number around 39 per cent, in Syria from 10 to 15 per cent. In Palestine before the creation of Israel, estimates range up to as much as 40 per cent, but mass emigration has slashed the number at present to 3.8 per cent.

In Israel, Arab Christians constitute 2.1 per cent (or roughly 10 per cent of the Arab population). In Egypt, they constitute between 9 and 16 per cent of the population (the government figures put them at 6 per cent).

Around two-thirds of North and South American and Australian Arabs are Christian, particularly from Lebanon, but also from Palestine and Syria. The current president of El Salvador Antonio Saca comes from well-known Christian Palestinian ancestry; his family emigrated from Bethlehem in the early 20th century.

Although the number of Christian Palestinians in Jerusalem and the occupied territories has dwindled over the years, they are still a key component of the Palestinian and Arab peoples of the region. Activists blame violence, occupation and uncertainty, coupled with work (or lack thereof) and emigration opportunities as the main reason for the flight of Christian Palestinians to the Americas, Australia and Europe.

While the world looks at the Arab-Israeli conflict from an Arab-Israeli point of view, or a Jewish-Islamic one, the role and contribution of Arab Christians cannot and need not be ignored.

Unlike followers of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, Christians have no religious attachment to physical locations. Scholars refer to the response of Jesus to the Samaritan woman's question about whether to worship in Jerusalem or in the Sumerian mountains. Jesus replied to her: "Neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

Christian Arabs, however, believe that a lasting resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict must both address the national aspirations of the Palestinians (of which they are part) and provide for the spiritual needs of the faithful, including Christians.

In this regard, Palestinian Christians are perhaps angriest with a radical but effective group of Christians who try to give biblical support and legitimacy to the Israeli aggression against Palestinians. An entire, well-endowed industry has cropped up in the West, attempting to hijack the Christian theological debate in favour of what is now referred to as Christian Zionism.

Right-wing governments in Israel and the US seem to be natural feeding grounds for these fundamentalists. Palestinian Christians have forcefully rejected this position, and some established evangelical voices have also come up to debunk these myths and insist on the need for justice as an integral part of any peaceful resolution in the region. These were exactly the wrong usages of religion that the pope referred to in Jordan when he spoke against the "ideologization" of religion.

The visit of the pontiff has stirred plenty of interest in the contributions Christians can make to the peace process. Israel's attempts to ban the Aida refugees in Bethlehem from erecting the stand for the visiting Pope by the 28-foot-high wall is perhaps the most glaring worry the Israeli occupiers have about the visit of the pontiff. They fear precisely what Arab Christians insist on: that a truly Christian position on the Israeli-Arab conflict will not be merely satisfied with a call for peace, but will necessarily also include a call for justice for Palestinians.

"Peace and justice" is the message of people of faith from the entire world, and is certainly the focus for Arab Christians.

The writer is director of media NGO Community Media Network in Jordan and Palestine. He comes from a Palestinian Christian family that traces its ancestry in Jerusalem 600 years. An earlier version of this article appeared in The Jordan Times.

Baffling Supreme Court Judgment On Beards

By Mohib Ahmad


In Mohammad Salim versus Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran decided that the plaintiff has to abide by the rules and regulations of educational institutions especially if it is a minority institution. The judgment, while correct in its spirit, is debatable in its implications. Private educational institutions do have a right to make their own rules and regulations but if it results into an infringement upon their fundamental right to freedom of religion of students then it is borderline unconstitutional.

In India such issues are being decided on a case by case basis and judgments are hampered by few legal precedence and fewer constructive debates. The comments made by the other judge on the bench, Justice Markandey Katju, have already vitiated the atmosphere for the latter to happen in India. In particular his comments about beards/burqa and equating those Islamic symbols with Talibanisation are hurtful and more of a reflection upon himself than on either the Indian society or the Taliban terrorists.

While dismissing the plea of defendant, Justice Katju remarked, “We don’t want to have Talibans in the country. Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa. Can we allow it,” and “I am secularist. We should strike a balance between rights and personal beliefs. We cannot overstretch secularism.” [The Hindu]

While it is true that the Taliban are bigoted, murderous thugs that force Muslim men to grow beard and Muslim women to wear burqa apart from committing other brutalities, those symbols in themselves do not constitute a support of the Taliban ideology when adopted voluntarily. By analogizing wearing burqa or growing beard with Taliban, Justice Katju has played into the hands of Taliban terrorists who want to portray themselves as the only true Muslims. He has made it difficult for regular Muslims wearing burqa or sporting beards now as it carries the taint of support of Taliban. It will allow Taliban and similar such terrorist groups to further misappropriate the religion of Islam as those opposing them can’t do it without first removing their beards or burqas. It will severely dent the argument that many of us have been making that extremist Taliban ideology can only be defeated by traditionalist Islamic thought but Justice Katju apparently sees no difference between a bearded cleric opposing Taliban and the Taliban themselves. How are the Deobandi ulema supposed to counter the ideological misrepresentations of Islam by Taliban terrorists when they themselves are being likened to them just because of some facial hairs?

Justice Katju also needs not to be reminded that it is not just the bearded Taliban fighters who could be terrorists but a clean-shaven western educated person could act in a similar fashion. The 21 terrorists who stuck on 9/11 or the 10 who terrorized Mumbai on 26/11 were not necessarily Justice Katju’s personification of how a terrorist should look like. Did Amir Ajmal Kasab wore a beard?

Justice Katju’s comments about burqa are equally baffling. Does he not know that a majority of Muslim women who wear burqa do so at their own volition? And by doing so they are just trying to follow modesty taught by their religion and not making a veiled statement in support of the Taliban. How different is Justice Katju’s assessment then from the ABVP goons who forcibly took burqas off Muslim students in Karnataka early March?

Mohammad Salim’s case was further weakened by his counsel arguing that keeping beard was an indispensable part of his client’s religion when he himself, as a Muslim, didn’t sport a beard. However the august court does not need to be reminded that it is not for them to decide what constitutes religion for an individual and what does not. Another court a few months back denied permission to two IAF officers to grow beard as it is not allowed in the armed forces. But Sikh armed force officers are allowed to keep beards as in court’s opinion keeping beard is an integral part of Sikhism. Keeping beard is part of Islam as well and it is up to a Muslim to make that choice form himself. The courts can’t decide what is required of Muslims and what is not as it can’t decide who is a Sikh and who is not. A recent report by Washington Post claims that less than 25% of Sikhs under 30 wear turbans even though it is an integral part of their belief. What happens when an un-bearded, un-turbanded or un-long-hair Sikh decides to seek admission to a Sikh minority institute? Should he be denied admission under Sikh quota because he is in violation of his religious beliefs? A similar case happened in 1998 when one Yadwinder Singh sued Dashmesh Institute of Research and Dental Sciences in Faridkot when it refused admission to him based upon his cut hair. A court in Punjab ordered the institute to pay Rs 7 Lakh as damages to the complainant Yadwinder Singh.

Prima facie it appears that Justice Katju and the bench over-reached their jurisdiction and some of the comments made by the bench went way beyond the scope of the case. What is good for Sikhs is good for Muslims and other religious denominations as well. At the very minimum if Mohammad Salim’s Sikh classmates are sporting beards as part of their religious traditions then he should be allowed to do the same on that basis. A healthy debate on private institutions right to set rules and regulations is needed. At the same time the courts can’t litigate religion from the bench.

Zionists Guilty of War Crimes

Senior Sri Lankan journalist Latheef Farook has submitted a document to The Hague based International Court of Justice emphasizing the need to bring to trial all Zionist Jewish leaders involved in war crimes against Palestinians and humanity. The document submitted this week has provided vivid details of the macabre massacres committed by migrant Zionist Jews on innocent Palestinian civilians during the past seven decades.

Israel's United States backed latest genocide in Gaza, especially the use of banned chemical weapons that is a war crime against humanity, has shocked the civilized world. Television footages of the genocide, which drew condemnation even from prominent British and American Jews, demonstrate their barbarity on Palestinians.


According to this document, even around 1905 when Palestine was a province of Turkey's Ottoman Empire only four percent of the population were Jews, but the remaining 96 percent were Palestinians. After World War I, Palestine was brought under the British Mandatory Power which helped to bring in Jews from Europe, Russia, Middle East and other regions to set up a separate Jewish state in the land of Palestinians after expelling the Palestinians.


Migrant Jews established terror organisations such as Haganah,Irgun and Sten led by Yitzhak Shamir , later elected prime minister and Menachem Begin who was not only elected as prime minister but was also awarded the coveted "Nobel Prize for Peace".


These Jewish terror gangs embarked upon a bloody campaign of manslaughter to terrorise the Palestinians and committed a series of reprehensible massacres against the Palestinian Arabs while the well-organised international Zionist propaganda machine deceived the world by justifying these crimes as they are now doing to camouflage their barbarity in Gaza. Thus began organised



Jewish violence that still reeks with the blood and butchery of the innocent hapless victims of the region.


Some of these massacres included the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem, villages of Deir Yassin, Mazraat El Khoury and Nasiruddin where young people were roasted alive when they were locked inside a house and set it on fire, Beit Drass where pregnant women were bayoneted in the womb; bodies of others atrociously mutilated and all the houses dynamited, Qibyah where bodies of seventy Palestinians were found under the debris of the dynamited houses, Kafr Kassim where the entire populations were killed, Khan Yunis Palestinian refugee camp where they lined up 275 Palestinians civilians against walls and killed all of them in cold blood,Qana and Qalquilya massacres to quote only a few though the long list continues.


Frightened Palestinians fled their homes and lands that were grabbed by migrant Jews and thus Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism in 1948. Israel razed more than 400 Palestinian villages between 1948 and 1967 and established exclusive Jewish settlements in their place. The Zionists had the support of so-called champions of human rights such as United States, Britain and Europe besides former Soviet Union.


Even after the creation of Israel these Jewish massacres continued. In 1982, Menachem Begin and his Defence Minister Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon and killed 17,825 people. Ariel Sharon triggered off the Palestinian uprising, known as Al Aqsa Intifada, when he entered Masjid Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem. He was the sole architect of the massacre at Jenin Palestinian refugee camp in the same way Olmert, Barak and Livini team committed their latest genocide in Gaza.




Israel attacked Gaza in 2006 to crush Hamas and indiscriminately killed Palestinians and destroyed infrastructure. Israel attacked Lebanon for almost a month killing more than 1200 innocent people besides destroying the recently built infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of houses throwing people into streets without food, electricity and water.


For far too long the Zionist Jews managed to get away with their crimes against humanity owing to their powerful grip on the political, economic and media establishments in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe and thereby extension the United Nations.


They ruthlessly exploited the media to cover up their crimes and project themselves as innocent victims of terrorists. Yet the sins of Zionist Jews are bound to haunt the West especially the United States and Britain for generations to come while the sins of Arab collaborators stinks high heaven that the entire perfume industry in the world will not be able to cleanse them of their sordid deeds.




Over the years, Israel has become a law unto itself. Israel has no respect for United Nations and openly defies all international laws, conventions and commitments. Israelis respect no religious or moral principles. They believe in no ethics, human rights or cherished human or family values. Their crime records, shamed humanity and threaten the Middle East, sunken to lowest of moral depth that made righteous Jews to distance themselves and UK Jewish MP Sir Gerald Kaufman to state that "Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza".


Thus, the need to bring the Zionist Jews who had committed and still committing these crimes to trial, expose their gruesome massacre and punish them as it was done in the case of Slobodan Milosevic and Pinochet. This is the only way to reaffirm the international community of the credibility of the International Court of Justice, stated the document.

In the US, Gaza is a different war

By Habib Battah


The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel's war on Gaza.
On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.

As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried beside her.

The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also wept.

Arab frustration

To understand the frustration often felt in the Arab world over US media coverage, one only needs to imagine the same front page had the situation been reversed.

If an Israeli woman had lost five daughters in a Palestinian attack, would The Washington Post run an equally sized photograph of a relatively unharmed Palestinian woman, who was merely distraught over Israeli missile fire?
When the front page photographs of the two women were published on December 30, over 350 Palestinians had reportedly been killed compared to just four Israelis.

What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians - would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in news value?

Like many major news organisations in the US, The Washington Post has chosen to cover the conflict from a perspective that reflects the US government's relationship with Israel. This means prioritising Israel's version of events while underplaying the views of Palestinian groups.

For example, the newspaper's lead article on Tuesday, which was published above the mothers' photographs, quotes Israeli military and civilian sources nine times before quoting a single Palestinian. The first seven paragraphs explain Israel's military strategy. The ninth paragraph describes the anxiety among Israelis, spending evenings in bomb shelters. Ordinary Palestinians, who generally have no access to bomb shelters, do not make an appearance until the 23rd paragraph.

To balance this top story, The Washington Post published another article on the bottom half of the front page about the Palestinian mother and her children. But would the paper have ever considered balancing a story about a massive attack on Israelis with an in-depth lead piece on the strategy of Palestinian militants?

Context stripped

Major US television channels also adopted the equal time approach, despite the reality that Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones by a hundred fold. However, such comparisons were rare because the scripts read by American correspondents often excluded the overall Palestinian death count.

By stripping the context, American viewers may have easily assumed a level playing field, rather than a case of disproportionate force.

Take the opening lines of a report filed by NBC's Martin Fletcher on December 30: "In Gaza two little girls were taking out the rubbish and killed by an Israeli rocket - while in Israel, a woman had been driving home and was killed by a Hamas rocket. No let up today on either side on the fourth day of this battle."

Omitted from the report was the overall Palestinian death toll, dropped continuously in subsequent reports filed by NBC correspondents over the next several days.

When number of deaths did appear - sometimes as a graphic at the bottom of the screen - it was identified as the number of "people killed" rather than being attributed specifically to Palestinians.

No wonder the overwhelmingly asymmetrical bombardment of Gaza has been framed vaguely as "rising tensions in the Middle East" by news anchors.

With the lack of context, the power dynamic on the ground becomes unclear.

ABC news, for example, regularly introduced events in Gaza as "Mideast Violence". And Like NBC, reporters excluded the Palestinian death toll.

On December 31, when Palestinian deaths stood at almost 400, ABC correspondent Simon McGergor-Wood began a video package by describing damage to an Israeli school by Hamas rockets.

The reporter's script can be paraphrased as follows: Israel wanted a sustainable ceasefire; Israel needed to prevent Hamas from rearming; Hamas targets were hit; Israel was sending in aid and letting the injured out; Israel was doing "everything they can to alleviate the humanitarian crisis". And with that McGregor-Wood signed off.

Palestinian perspective missing

There was no parallel telling of the Palestinian perspective, and no mention of any damages to Palestinian lives, although news agencies that day had reported five Palestinians dead.

For the ABC correspondent, it seemed the Palestinian deaths contained less news value than damage to Israeli buildings. His narration of events, meanwhile, amounted to no less than a parroting of the official Israeli line.

In fact, the Israeli government view typically went unchallenged on major US networks.


The US media has been accused of prioritising Israel's version of events [EPA]
Interviews with Israeli spokesmen and ambassadors were not juxtaposed with the voices of Palestinian leaders. Prominent American news anchors frequently adopted the Israeli viewpoint. In talk show discussions, instead of debating events on the ground, the pundits often reinforced each other's views.
Such an episode occurred on a December 30 broadcast of the MSNBC show, Morning Joe, during which host Joe Scarborough repeatedly insisted that Israel should not be judged.

Israel was defending itself just as the US had done throughout history. "How many people did we kill in Germany?" Scarborough posed.

The blame rested on the Palestinians, he concluded, connecting the Gaza attacks to the Camp David negotiations of 2000. "They gave the Palestinians everything they could ask for, and they walked away from the table," he said repeatedly.

Although this view was challenged once by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US official, who appeared briefly on the show, subsequent guests agreed incessantly with Scarborough's characterisation of the Palestinians as negligent, if not criminal in nature.

According to guest Dan Bartlett, a former White House counsel, the Palestinian leadership had made it "very clear" that they were uninterested in peace talks.

Another guest, NBC anchor David Gregory, began by noting that Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president, "could not be trusted", according to Bill Clinton, the former US president.

Gregory then added that Hamas had "undercut the peace process" and actually welcomed the attacks.

"The reality is that Hamas wanted this, they didn't want the ceasefire," he said.

Columnist Margaret Carlson also joined the show, agreeing in principal that Hamas should be "crushed" but voicing concern over the cost of such action.

Thus the debate was not whether Israel was justified, but rather what Israel should do next. The Palestinian human tragedy received little to no attention.

Victim's perspective

Arab audiences saw a different picture altogether. Rather than mulling Israel's dilemma, the Arab news networks captured the air assault in chilling detail from the perspective of its victims. The divide in coverage was staggering.

For US networks, the bombing of Gaza has largely been limited to two-minute video packages or five minute talk show segments. This has usually meant a few snippets of jumbled video: explosions from a distance and a momentary glance at victims; barely enough time to remember a face, let alone a personality. Victims were rarely interviewed.

The availability of time and space, American broadcast executives might argue, were mitigating factors.

On MSNBC for example, Gaza competed for air time last week with stories about the economy, such as a hike in liquor sales, or celebrity news, such as speculation over the publishing of photographs of Sarah Palin's new grandchild.


Most US networks have reported exclusively from Israel [GALLO/GETTY] On Arab TV, however, Gaza has been the only story.
For hours on end, live images from the streets of Gaza are beamed into Arab households.

Unlike the correspondents from ABC and NBC, who have filed their reports exclusively from Israeli cities, Arab crews are inside Gaza, with many correspondents native Gazans themselves.

The images they capture are often broadcast unedited, and over the last week, a grizzly news gathering routine has been established.

The cycle begins with rooftop-mounted cameras, capturing the air raids live. After moments of quiet, thunderous bombing commences and plumes of smoke rise over the skyline. Then, anguish on the streets. Panicked civilians run for cover as ambulances careen through narrow alleys. Rescue workers hurriedly pick through the rubble, often pulling out mangled bodies. Fathers with tears of rage hold dead children up to the cameras, vowing revenge. The wounded are carried out in stretchers, gushing with blood.

Later, local journalists visit the hospitals and more gruesome images, more dead children are broadcast. Doctors wrap up the tiny bodies and carry them into overflowing morgues. The survivors speak to reporters. Their distraught voices are heard around the region; the outflow of misery and destruction is constant.

Palestinian voices

The coverage extends beyond Gaza. Unlike the US networks, which are often limited to one or two correspondents in Israel, major Arab television channels maintain correspondents and bureaus throughout the region. As angry protests take place on a near daily basis, the crews are there to capture the action live.

Even in Israel, Arab reporters are employed, and Israeli politicians are regularly interviewed. But so are members of Hamas and the other Palestinian factions.

The inclusion of Palestinian voices is not unique to Arab media. On a number of international broadcasters, including BBC World and CNN International, Palestinian leaders and Gazans in particular are regularly heard. And the Palestinian death toll has been provided every day, in most broadcasts and by most correspondents on the ground. Reports are also filed from Arab capitals.

On some level, the relatively small American broadcasting output can be attributed to a general trend in downsizing foreign reporting. But had a bloodbath on this scale happened in Israel, would the networks not have sent in reinforcements?

For now, the Israeli viewpoint seems slated to continue to dominate Gaza coverage. The latest narrative comes from the White House, which has called for a "durable" ceasefire, preventing Hamas terrorists from launching more rockets.

Naturally the soundbites are parroted by US broadcasters throughout the day and then reinforced by pundits, fearing the dangerous Hamas.

Arab channels, however, see a different outcome. Many have begun referring to Hamas, once controversial, as simply "the Palestinian resistance".

While American analysts map out Israel's strategy, Arab broadcasters are drawing their own maps, plotting the expanding range of Hamas rockets, and predicting a strengthened hand for opposition to Israel, rather than a weakened one.

Habib Battah is a freelance journalist and media analyst based in Beirut and New York.

BJP and the challenge of terrorism

Vidya Subrahmaniam

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/19/stories/2008111956251000.htm

At a press conference held some weeks ago in Delhi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the amiable spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party, seemed strangely out of form. If this was unusual, so too was the subject under discussion — Hindutva's terror connection. A veteran of countless television studio debates, Mr. Prasad is well schooled in the art of repartee and rejoinder. Yet here he was, stumbling and stuttering, unable to face the volley of questions on the revelations linking a handful of Hindutva followers to terror attacks in Malegaon and other places.

Asked the hacks: What happened to the BJP's stand that terrorism brooked no leniency? The BJP had no qualms about labelling every Muslim terror suspect a terrorist; it campaigned for the return of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, which placed the burden of proof on the accused. Yet it now wanted the presumption of innocence applied to terror suspects from its own fold. Why? The party wanted the maximum freedom granted to terror investigators so that they felt no pressure. Yet it now complained of police excesses. Why?

That was then, in the early days of some Hindutva warriors' newly discovered terror links. As the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad set off on the saffron terror trail and arrested a gaggle of activists, among them Sadhvi Pragnya Singh and a serving army officer, the BJP seemed in shock. At a loss for a strategy to deal with this unexpected twist in the terror plot, the party lurched from one unclear position to another — from the tried and tested "let the law take its course" through outrightly denying the terror link to urging a fair trial for the accused. Party strategists worried that they had lost the terrorism plank, and wondered how the new revelations would play out in the electoral arena.

Judging by the BJP-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's current aggression, the moment of self-doubt has passed. Evidently, the Hindutva terror angle, which formerly discomfited the parivar, has since become an opportunity to deepen the communal divide. BJP chief Rajnath Singh, who has been photographed with Pragnya Singh, earlier claimed that he was embarrassed to have been found in the same frame with her. Today he is out on a limb to defend her and others caught in the ATS terror ring, going so far as to call their arrests a " huge conspiracy," and offering them the full protection of his party.

Calculated belligerence



The RSS' initial restraint has similarly given way to a belligerence calculated to incite divisive passions. The crackdown on Pragnya Singh and others has sent the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Praveen Togadia into a torrent of abuse and anger. Warning of reprisals against the ATS and the United Progressive Alliance government, he fumed: "They are committing the sin of describing a sadhvi as a terrorist. I promise a political backlash against this."

This is dangerous talk. Mr. Togadia's threats aside, Mr. Singh is virtually saying he will not allow the police to do their job in a serious terror case. The BJP and the sangh would have gone ballistic had one of their ideological adversaries or a Muslim cleric used similar language.

The BJP's other point, that arrests should be based on hard evidence, is unexceptional, though this is an unprecedented first from a party which never before attached any importance to evidence: "The Congress must realise that terrorist investigations can be solved not through propaganda but only through hard evidence and non-politicised investigation."

A word of caution here for the BJP's opponents. This is not a moment for gloating or finding satisfaction over the involvement of Hindutva elements in terrorism. Terrorism is serious, whether of the Islamist or Hindutva variety, which is all the more reason to ensure that it does not become a tool for settling political scores or to target the innocent. It can be no rational person's case that investigation into Islamist terrorism must be meticulous, impartial and transparent but that a wild goose chase is permissible when the suspects are of Hindutva persuasion.

The BJP is fully within its rights to question the ATS on the veracity of its findings. Yet this right by no means extends to threatening the ATS or warning of a backlash. There is also the party's blatant double standard. When the Delhi police killed two Muslim terror suspects in an encounter at Batla House on September 19, following this up with more arrests from the neighbourhood, the BJP did not wait a second to call all of them terrorists and angrily swung at human rights activists who picked holes in the police version. The party called Mushirul Hasan, Vice-Chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia University, anti-national for his offer to provide legal assistance to the terror suspects at Jamia Nagar. It stuck to this position despite a clarification from him that the funds were being privately arranged by the students and teachers of the university. It said this knowing that lawyers in many courts had been physically prevented from representing the Muslim terror accused.

An irony



Today, the BJP has promised to arrange the best legal help in the country for Pragnya Singh and others. If this is an irony, so is the fact that every terrorism-related charge the party hurled at its political opponents is now recoiling on it. Terrorism had been the BJP's biggest plank, topping the agenda at every party meet and providing the basis for its political resolutions. The party contended that it alone had the will and inner strength to counter terrorism, which posed the single most potent threat to the unity and integrity of the country.

From this vantage nationalist position, the BJP attacked its opponents: The Congress and its allies in the UPA were soft on terror because they coveted the Muslim vote-bank. Rights activists and even some within the UPA were openly sympathetic to Muslim terror suspects, offering them legal help, countering the police claims and so on because they looked at terrorism from an anti-national perspective, because they refused to accept that the imperatives of pursuing terror overrode human rights considerations.

Addressing a seminar in the capital as recently as October 4, Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, summed up his party's position on terrorism thus: "As far as the BJP is concerned, let me make it absolutely clear that we shall never conduct ourselves in such a short-sighted way that history would hold us guilty of not doing our duty at the right time and in the right manner … Our vision is not limited by the considerations of where our party will be after the next elections. Rather, it extends to caring about where India will be after a hundred years, after a thousand years."

Has the BJP passed the test of the "right time" and "right manner" set by its shadow Prime Minister? Clearly not. The "right manner" at this "right time" would have been for the BJP to openly and categorically acknowledge the possibility of some extremist Hindutva elements being involved in terrorism while simultaneously stressing the importance of transparency in all investigations. Such a stand would not have tainted the Hindu community. Far from it, it would have strengthened Hindu society and underscored its celebrated openness. Instead, the BJP and the sangh have clung to a single defence: That as nationalist forces they were above board, indeed that Hindus could never be terrorists, much less Hindus who subscribed to cultural nationalism.

This is an absurd claim. Gandhi's assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a product of cultural nationalism. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the National Democratic Front of Boroland (suspected to be involved in the serial Assam blasts), are not religious extremists but they would loosely fall in the Hindu category.

For long the BJP and the sangh have lamented the absence of moderate, outspoken voices among Muslims, voices that would frontally confront the reality of terrorism. It is true that Muslims have largely been in denial about Islamist terrorism. But that situation is slowly but surely changing, and the evidence is in the unequivocal condemnation of terrorism by over 6000 clerics at a meeting of Muslim clergy in Hyderabad on November 8. The BJP must follow this bold lead rather than bury its head in the sand and believe in the pristine purity of Hindutva.

There is much that is wrong with our approach to terrorism. Investigative agencies have tended to talk loose and fast, leading to too many quick-fix arrests. Last week, the Andhra Pradesh government announced compensation to at least 15 innocent Muslims who were wrongly arrested by the Hyderabad police and tortured in custody. Cops on the Hindutva terror trail have made many contradictory claims. Television channels that ran defamatory stories about "Muslim terrorists" are now flooding the screens with salacious details of the "sadhvi and the sant."

For the challenge of terrorism to be squarely met we need investigators who brag less and concentrate more on finding clinching evidence. We need a more responsible media, and finally we need political parties that preach less and have the courage to turn the mirror inward.

++++++++++++++++++++

His Assassin, "Hindu Terrorist": Nathuram Godse
There is a website www.GandhiBapu.com which has recently made available a script of Godse's Last Statement in the court.
Read at this website below: http://www.gandhibapu.com/templet.jsp?sno=71&E71=1

"I only want to say that I am not at all sorry for what I have done" Godse said about killing of Mahatma Ghandi. " Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole.. - Godse.

Book Review: The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide by Susan Nathan

by Vinod Joseph

Susan tells her readers how, when she was visiting a South African relative at the age of sixteen, she saw a black servant reprimanded for not wearing white gloves while serving them food. An incensed Susan followed the servant to the kitchen and had sex with him on the kitchen table.

Many years later, fifty year old Susan, recently divorced, made aliyah and moved to Israel from the UK, leaving behind two grown up children. Susan was following a path followed by many other Jews. The Jewish Agency in London processed Susan’s application in a week and bought her a ticket to Israel. When Susan landed in Israel, she was put in Rana’ana, one of the best run immigrant absorption centres where she was taught basic Hebrew and the nitty-gritty's of life in Israel.

Soon Susan became unhappy with her life in Israel. She realised that she had performed aliyah at the expense of the Arab citizens of Israel who are treated as second hand citizens. Slowly her romantic notions of Israel and life in Israel evaporated. Israel was a sanctuary for the Jews of the world, but it had a lot of skeletons in its cupboard.

Never shy of taking direct action, three years after reaching Israel, Susan packed up and moved to Tamra, an Arab town of 25,000 people in the Galilee, located between Haifa and Nazareth.

Tamra

Susan paints a vivid picture of Tamra. Electricity and telephone cables are slung haphazardly across the streets. Rubble and rubbish can be found everywhere. Children play in the streets. The drains are overwhelmed by the occasional showers.

Susan rents some space from an Arab family living in Tamra. The grandmother in the family is so very good at making the most of what they have. They grow vegetables in the little patch of land they have. The head of the clam or Hamula stands for office in the municipal elections and wins. Susan votes for him.

Susan finds that Arab festivals are similar to Jewish ones. An Arab engagement party is not much different from a Jewish one. Customs, especially in the case of deaths and burials are very similar. Bodies are buried on the same day by sundown. Arabs have 3 days of mourning whilst Jews mourn for 7 days.

I’ll leave it to you to read the book and enjoy Susan’s description of Tamra, the elections and everything else.

Discrimination in different shapes and sizes

To an outsider, Israel appears to be an open society where all citizens have equal rights. It is a democracy where every citizen is entitled to vote and practice a religion of his/her choice. But it is not as simple as that. Israel, a nation formed on the basis of a UN resolution, does not treat its Arab citizens on par with its Jewish nationals. Discrimination is at times subtle, but at times it is in-your-face. Israel is a made-to-measure-democracy, where a Jewish majority at all times is fixed. ‘Fixed’ as in ‘match-fixing' fixed.

Each page in Susan’s book (two hundred and seventy odd pages) details a form of discrimination or harassment practised against the Arabs. I am not even going to try and capture all of the story here. However, let me tell you that Susan’s book has the ring of truth and honesty and is capable of making even the most committed Israel fan re-appraise his or her stand.

Land policies

The Zionists migrated to an empty barren land, described as a “land without people for a people without land”. Just as the European migrants to the Americas found bison and native Indians, the Jews did find some people in Palestine (lots of people actually), but they were not particularly civilised or in any way worthy of being treated on par with the immigrants. Which was a relief actually since it made it easy to de-humanise them and grab their land.

It worked out like this. The UN resolution which created Israel and a Palestinian state gave 55% of the land to Israel and 44% to the Palestinian state. This despite the fact that the Arabs were a majority in Palestine at that time and the Jews actually owned only 7% of the land. I don't agree with Susan that the 55:45 split was particularly unfair since the State of Israel was supposed to be a haven for Jews from around the world, not just for the Jews already there. It was assumed that there would be continued migration of Jews into Israel, which was to be a predominantly Jewish state.

However, I agree with Susan that happened after that was not particularly fair. In the course of the 1948 war, Israel did its best to chase Arabs away from their homes. Internally displaced Arabs had their lands and homes confiscated. The Israeli government's programme of extensive confiscation of Arab land has continued ever since. There's an Israeli bureaucratic term for Arabs who are internal refugees - “Present Absentees”. There are 250,000 of such present absentees in Israel.

Israel has put in place a land policy which Susan describes as “land apartheid”. Except for 7% of Israeli land owned by Israeli Arabs, the rest is owned by the government which leases it to Israelis. So far, over 400 Arab villages have been destroyed by the Israeli government.

Whilst there's plenty land available for Jews, the Israeli government tries to cram in as many Arabs as possible in the least amount of land. With the agricultural land surrounding Arab villages and towns confiscated, many young Arab couples can't find land to build homes for themselves. Susan gives the example of her own town, Tamra, where only 1000 acres of land is available for building. This means 88 people per acre. 6000 acres of Tamra's land has been zoned, that is designated for farming or as green land. We are told that Tamra has run out of land to bury the dead. According to Susan, the message to Arabs from the state is clear. They are not welcome in Israel.

The famous Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem has been built on the ruins of the abandoned village of Ein Kerem.

Ayn Hawd is yet another village taken over by the Israeli army after the villagers abandoned it during the 1948 war. 35 villagers, members of the Abu al-Hija family, went back and occupied a small portion of the land that was theirs. Ever since then, Israel has been trying to evict them from that land. To do so, a large area including the land occupied by the village has been declared to be a national park and later, an archaeological site as well. To put more pressure, the land was also declared to be part of a firing range. Laws designed ostensibly to protect vegetation prevent the villagers from grazing their cattle. The villagers are denied access to electricity or water. A veteran from Ayn Hawd described to Susan how it used to take him 3 hours to get to school. Ayn Hawd is not a one-off, but has been replicated across the country.

Tree planting programmes

The Israeli government has an avowed goal to 'green' Israel. This one involves planting pine, olive, carob and the like trees wherever possible, especially over destroyed Arab villages, so that one cannot find any trace of them. The Jewish National Fund (set up in 1901 in order to buy land in Ottoman ruled Palestine) is an NGO which, inter alia, collects money for the planting of trees in Israel. If you donate $18, you can have a tree planted in Israel. It might be on land once occupied by an Arab village.


Education

More than Israel's land policy, I found Susan's description of Israeli education policy very troubling. To start with, Arab students have a different curriculum from Jewish students The government spends £105 a year on every Arab student, whilst £485 is spent on Jewish students. A mind boggling £1,340 is spent every year on Jewish religious (Yeshiva) students. This is because both the education ministry and the religious affairs ministry support these students.

Infrastructure and other facilities available in Arab schools is markedly inferior to Jewish schools. For example, even though all schools are required to be air conditioned, many Arab schools are not.

Palestinian Arab history is not taught in schools. There is no mention of the 'Nakbah' suffered by the Arabs of Palestine, other than as part of the Israeli citizenship curriculum explained below in the section 'Oases of Hope'.

In Susan's opinion, the worst aspect of the system is that all teachers are vetted by the security services. Shin Bet has a large network of spies, even in schools. Since students know that their teachers have obtained security clearance, they don't respect them. I don't fully agree with Susan. Does she expect the Israeli government to hand out jobs to people who could be a security threat? However, keeping in mind the fact that almost all Arabs in Israel are bound to have grievances, I assume the teachers who obtain security clearance are bound to be totally spineless.

School books promote stereotypes. Susan went through a textbook which talks of little Gideon and little Avner wanting to be astronauts. There was only one instance of Arabs being mentioned. Young Mohammad and young Yousef are shown to be asking their uncle how to be good camel drivers.

Susan says there is no Arab University in Israel, but towards the end of the book, she makes a reference to Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem (which is an occupied territory under international law). Israeli universities don't permit dissent. Arab students find it tough to get admission to universities. There are extra points for students who have done well in Hebrew, but none for doing well in Arabic. In 2003, there was a reform which was meant to make it easy for underprivileged students to gain admission to universities. The measures were intended for underprivileged Jewish children, but the main beneficiaries were the Arabs. The reforms were countermanded within a short time.

Susan tells us of Samiha, a very smart student who could not apply for medical school after she passed out since she was too young. The minimum age limit is set so that Jewish students who join medical school after their 3 year military service are not disadvantaged. So Samiha applied to law school where she was supposed to be a shoo-in. Samiha's application was rejected, for reasons unknown.


Arab Politics

Susan finds Arab Politics to be feudal. A family is usually dressed up as a political party. Susan thinks Israel is to blame for this state of affairs. In Israel, Arab politicians are considered hostile unless they join a Zionist party. Arab parties are excluded from coalitions. So Arab politicians stick to municipal elections.

I don't fully agree with Susan, though, a share of the blame should lie with Israel. I don't really understand why Arabs who form 20% of the population and have the right to vote shouldn't be a decisive force in Israeli elections.

Is it apartheid?

Susan makes a good case to say that Israel's treatment of its Arab minority is apartheid. The petty elements of apartheid are not present. Arabs can sit on the same benches as Jews. They can ride the same buses. However, the discrimination in core areas such as land, education etc. amount to an apartheid of sorts, according to Susan. I can see an element of truth in what Susan says.

The Israeli Left

Susan has nothing but contempt for the Israeli left-wing which reserves its sympathy for Palestinians in the occupied territories and don’t really care about Arabs within Israel. For example, Haaretz, the left-wing Israeli newspaper, has much better reports on Palestinians from the occupied territories than on Arab Israelis. Israeli left wingers say they had no choice but to come from Europe, take a country not theirs and dispossess thousands of Palestinians. Any mention of equal rights for Arab Israelis is anathema to everyone in Israel. There is no concept that rights are basic and universal.

Susan has lengthy descriptions of how left-wing Israelis don't do enough for Israeli Arabs. There is an interesting description of an interview by Sara Leibovitch-Dar, a Haaretz journalist, which ultimately was not published in English. There are interesting quotes from left-wing Israeli's - “If we let the Arabs back, they will be everywhere.”

Susan's friend Daphna Golan, Law Lecturer at Hebrew University, runs an organisation called Btselem which fights human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Daphna wants a Palestinian state, but Susan would rather focus on rights of Arab Israelis

Comparisons with Germany

Ein Hod is a communal settlement of artists built over the remains of the Arab village of Ayn Hawd mentioned above. Samira, whose parents used to live in Ayn Hawd, went to Ein Hod to 'take a look.' She was practically chased away. Susan contrasts the treatment Samira received with that of Rabbi Rayner's experience in Germany. Rayner, an eminent liberal Rabbi from London went to Germany to take a look at the house where his folks used to live. He was graciously invited in and allowed to look around.

Hijab

Susan has an interesting opinion on the hijab, one of the most reviled garments in recent times. Susan says the hijab gives her dignity. She doesn't feel repressed. Instead, she feels free and proud to be a woman. When Susan used to live in Tel Aviv, she skimpy clothing meant that when men spoke with her, they had a conversation with her body and not with her.

Armed Jewish Extremists on the loose – with army protection

Susan has a few horror stories of how armed settlers are carrying out a limited form of ethnic cleansing in Israel in order to rid it of its Arab population. She runs into a rifle carrying settler while in a hospital ward who boasts that he has just requisitioned a home in East Jerusalem. 'All of East Jerusalem belongs to the Jews,' he boasts. Later Susan finds a bunch of settlers trying to evict an Arab family from their East Jerusalem home. Having occupied a flat about the Arab family, the settlers work in relay teams in making life a living hell for the Arab family. The hallway is used as a toilet and there is constant noise. To top it all, the settlers have military protection.

The Israeli Army – a culture of hatred and some hope

'What’s the difference between an Israeli soldier who bulldozes a house with people inside and a terrorist?' Susan asks her readers rhetorically.

The Israeli army incubates a culture of hatred, according to Susan. Even nice, law abiding teenagers become machines of hatred once they are in the army. Even the well intentioned among the soldiers cannot make a difference. Susan gives the example of Bar, who joined the army in the hope of doing some good. Bar was on duty at a West Bank checkpoint which had been closed in retaliation for a suicide bombing a few days earlier. Schools had just reopened and a number of school children in their new uniforms and their parents had lined up to cross over. Tempers started to fly when they realised that they won't be allowed across. Soldiers scream at the children to stay away from the gate. The frightened children do stay away. Bar decides to be polite and she is shoved aside by the queuing Arabs.

Irit, Principal of the Waldorf school, tells Susan that she hasn't recovered though she left the army 12 years ago.

Yet, more and more soldiers are objecting to the army's treatment of the Arabs. Many soldiers feel shame. They don’t want to belong to Israel. They say ‘its not mine. I’ll go to India or live in Europe.’

Language Intolerance

Susan tells us of an Arab employee being sacked by McDonald’s for speaking in Arabic with a fellow employee. Apparently there was a company direction that forbid employees from speaking Arabic. Why is there such a prohibition? Because the sound of Arabic might scare customers!

When the Rule of Law leads to injustice

South Africa during the apartheid era was one of those rare instances where the rule of law resulted in gross injustice. Apartheid was sanctioned by law and every other injustice practised by the state had legal sanction. Something similar takes place in Israel. There are laws which are meant to benefit only Jews. But they wouldn't say that. The law will instead say that it applies only to those who are eligible under the law of return or to those who are mandatorily required to perform military service.

Israel does not have a written constitution, though it was promised in the declaration of independence. Susan has an interesting explanation for this. According to Susan, a written constitution would lay down basic rights and guarantees for all citizens, including Arabs, enforceable in a court of law. Israel is not very keen on this.

The commonly accepted definition of a Jew is one born of a Jewish mother. Under the Law of Return, any one with a Jewish grandparent is eligible to perform aliyah, the idea being to get as many Jews as possible into Israel. Susan contrasts the Law of Return with the demand by displaced Arabs for the Right to Return to their homes, a right they have been denied so far.

Under the Citizenship Law of 2003, Palestinian spouses of Israeli Arabs won't be given Israeli ID or citizenship. A harsh law, it has not prevented Arabs in Israeli from marrying Palestinians, though they can't live together after marriage.

The public sector is almost exclusively reserved for Jews. The Israeli Electricity Board has over 13,000 employees, of whom 6 are Arabs. Please remember that Arabs form 20% of Israel's population.

Water scarcity in the West Bank

The West Bank sits atop the most prolific aquifers in Palestine. However, it faces acute water shortages, since water from the West Bank is used to fill up Israeli swimming pools and sprinkle Israeli lawns.

A difficult life

Life is a lot more difficult for Israeli Arabs than for its Jews. Most service providers will not travel to Arab towns or villages. Susan has interesting stories of how telephone companies won’t sent their repairmen to Tamra which is not listed on El Al's database.

At Ben Gurion airport, Arabs are searched more rigorously and are treated rudely. Susan's friend Dr. Manna’s son and his Jewish girl friend were forced to miss a flight because they were required to undergo additional security checks. A woman travelling to Germany for a cancer operation was asked to turn up early so that she could be subjected to extra security checks. Susan compares this to a black man in South Africa not being picked up by a whites-only ambulance and dying as a result of that. I don't agree with Susan on this. I think El Al is perfectly entitled to carry out additional security checks on any of its passengers. How can El Al ensure that a bomb is not attached to the wheel chair carrying the cancer patient if not by carrying out additional checks? Let's face it, there is a much higher chance of an Arab passenger turning out to be a hijacker than a Jewish one. However, there is no excuse for being rude to Arab passengers.

It is not surprising that Arabs in Israel tend to say “Ma la’assot” or “What to do?” quite often.

Oases of hope

Amidst all this, there are many signs of hope. Mahapach, an NGO in which Susan is involved, does a lot of work for disadvantaged communities, especially oriental Jews, the Mizrarahim.

Eitan Bronstein runs an organisation called Zochrot (meaning remember) which posts signs on places built over destroyed Arab villages.

Israeli schools teaches all senior students before matriculation and military service an Israeli citizenship curriculum. Both Arabs and Jews learn the same lessons, which examine Israeli history including the Nakbah.

Arun Gandhi and non-violence

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson finds a mention in Susan's narrative. Susan says (rightly in my opinion) that Arun Gandhi fails to understand the depth of Palestinian anger when he advocates non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation. Susan attended a lecture by Arun Gandhi where he apparently talked of his childhood in South Africa with his Grandfather. Though Arun Gandhi was born in South Africa in 1934, I don't think he lived in South Africa at the same time as Mahatma Gandhi since Gandhi returned to India in 1915. As far as I know, Arun Gandhi lived with the Mahatma for two years only (1946-1948) in India. I assume Susan misheard what Arun Gandhi said.

Conclusion

I still believe that the UN resolution which created Israel was fair and just. I also think the Israel is entitled to permit Jewish immigration into Israel, since Israel is meant to be a haven for Jews. However, the UN resolution did not give the Israelis a mandate to carry out ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Israel. Israel was meant to be predominantly Jewish and not exclusively Jewish. This selective amnesia, in my opinion, has been the root cause for the state sponsored discrimination against Arabs. I believe that Israel should allow all displaced Arabs to return to their homes from refugees camps in Israel and from outside.

Towards the end of the book, Susan examines the two state theory and wonders if it is the best option available for Israel. An alternative would be for a single state incorporating Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Susan approvingly quotes Dr. Saed Zidan, Prof. at Al-Quds University, East Jerusalem who feels that Israel could become a confederation of an Arab state and a Jewish state. Everyone will stay where they are, but enjoy equal rights.

Palestine in a rough place where dialogue does not always work. I can imagine Jews saying that if they had lost the 1948 war or the 1967 war, the Arabs would have thrown them into the sea. In any event, they would have been treated worse than how Arabs are currently being treated in Israel. But arguments such as these will not offer a solution to the Palestinian problem. Just as the USA made peace with native Americans by conceding that they had been wronged and compensated them with money and land, Israel must make good the losses suffered by its Arab population and make peace with them.

I don't think a single state incorporating Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is practical. There is too much hatred between Jews and the Arabs for that to work. In my opinion, even a confederation will not work since it would require Arabs and Jews to have a common foreign policy and a single army. I just don't see the Israeli army with Arabs and Jews working together. The two-state solution set out in the UN resolution is in my opinion, the only solution in this troubled land. To make it work, Israel must first rein in its right wing Haredim and settlers. Once all Jews in Israel accept that they are not entitled to the whole of Palestine and that Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Jews, Israel will be in a position to offer a meaningful solution to the Arabs.

Israel in a Showdown with West Bank Settlers

By TIM MCGIRK for TIME magazine

The hill named Oush Grab lies a stone's throw from the Shepherd's Field, near Bethlehem. Christian pilgrims flock to the place where the Bible says an angel tipped off a shepherd that Jesus Christ had been born, but most visitors are unaware of the battle raging over this obscure hilltop. Oush Grab is an undistinguished rocky outcrop of limestone, dotted with thorny shrubs. And it has no political, strategic or Old Testament significance. That's why the Israeli authorities allowed the Arab Christians of Beit Zahour, with help from educational agency Paidia International Development, to build a little park on its slopes, featuring a rock-climbing wall and a picnic ground. There were also plans to construct a $9 million children's surgical hospital on the upper reaches of Oush Grab, which would be the only one of its kind in the Palestinian territories.

Then one day last May, more than 100 Jewish settlers showed up on this hill of no consequence. They brought guns and paint brushes so they could scrawl "Death to Arabs" on a concrete pillbox left by the Israeli army when it pulled out several years ago. (The phantom guerrilla artist Banksy also found his way to this same fortification, stenciling onto it a wistful image of a truck towing away an Israeli tank.) And with the settlers came a phalanx of Israeli soldiers to provide protection.

Plans to build the desperately needed children's hospital — supported by Cure International, a worldwide charity helping disabled children — are now shelved. During one recent occupation of Oush Grab, a young Jewish extremist warned foreign-aid worker Jason Pollack, "We can't let you build the children's hospital here. Otherwise, we'll have to blow it up."

The settlers first arrived in May and have appeared a dozen times since, usually staying a few hours, blocking roads to the park and raising an Israeli flag, which is inevitably torn down by the Palestinian villagers as soon as the settlers and their military escort depart. The settlers make a religious-Zionist claim to Oush Grab, saying that because it is inside the biblical land of Judea and Samaria, it therefore belongs to Jews. "It's one more piece of Jewish homeland that the Arabs are trying to take away from us," says Nadia Matar, co-chairwoman of a right-wing Israeli group, Women in Green.

But legally, says Beit Zahour mayor Hani el-Hayek, Israelis never had ownership of the hill, which is surrounded on three sides by Arab villages and terraced groves of olive trees that are nearly 1,000 years old. It used to be a Jordanian army outpost. After Israel conquered the West Bank in the 1967 war, it became a small IDF fort. And when the Israeli army vacated Oush Grab, it reverted to the Jordanian army. Jordan renounced all claim to the West Bank after the 1993 Oslo peace accord, but Beit Zahour's mayor is hoping that if he gets the Jordanian army to sign over the land deed to the municipality, it will give him a stronger claim in Israeli court to fight the settlers. And of course, Israel's leaders recognize that the same West Bank to which the settlers claim a biblical right is land on which a Palestinian state will have to be built if a two-state peace solution is to be achieved.

Over the years, successive Israel governments have tacitly encouraged, and then failed to halt, the spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank — a practice widely viewed as contravening international law. Often the settlers' behavior toward Palestinian neighbors is marked by violence; video footage shows Jewish youths using baseball bats to club Palestinian families trying to harvest their olive trees or tending sheep. Nor do the settlers fear reprisals from the Israeli authorities: human-rights group Yesh Din says only 8% of Palestinian complaints of settler violence have led to indictments by Israeli police.

But lately the Israeli mood has shifted against extremist settlers. In Hebron last week, they clashed not only with Palestinians but with the Israeli security forces as well, calling them "Nazis" and pelting them with stones. The settlers may rely on Israeli soldiers to shield them from attacks by Palestinians, but such is their rage against the Israeli state over the possibility that Israel could relinquish control over the West Bank in order to forge a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians that they have turned on their protectors.

The Hebron attacks on the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) at last stirred the Israeli Cabinet into action against the settlers. In a Sunday Cabinet meeting, Yuval Diskin, the chief of Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency, warned that settlers would probably shoot back if the Israeli security forces tried to dislodge them en masse from West Bank outposts deemed illegal even under Israeli law. Says Diskin: "Their approach began with the slogan 'Through love, we will win' ... but has now reached 'Through war, we will win.'"

After hearing the security chief's grim appraisal, the Israeli Cabinet, reversing years of tacit support for the settlers, voted to cut off all funds and support for the 100 or so renegade outposts in the West Bank. But it is probably too little, too late. No Israeli leader, least of all a lame duck like outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will risk a bloody showdown between Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers. Officers warn that such a clash could lead to rebellion in the army ranks, since many of the IDF's gung-ho soldiers were raised in the West Bank settlements and share their messianic ideology.

As the settlers like to say, it's "facts on the ground" that count. And as long as the Jewish extremists can hold on to the hilltop and the Israeli army dithers over evicting them, it remains doubtful that the planned Palestinian children's hospital on Oush Grab will ever be built.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1855914,00.html?xid=rss-topstories