Palestine Updates 46
Opinion
We must free both peoples from the occupation
In a massive rally, Israeli speakers, Israeli artists and peace activists gathered to affirm their opposition to Israel’s 50-year-long occupation of the Palestinian territory. A message from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was read during the rally: “There isn’t a voice stronger than the voice of just and inclusive peace, just like there isn’t a voice stronger than the right of people for self-determination and freedom from the burden of occupation… time has come to live, you and us, in peace, harmony, security and stability. The only way to end the conflict and the fight against terror in the region and the entire world is a solution of two states based on the 1967 borders, Palestine alongside Israel…We’ve accepted the decisions of the UN, recognized Israel and accepted the two-state solution, and the world has recognized the state of Palestine. Now the time has come for the State of Israel to recognize our state and end the occupation.
Profound words, and tough ones from Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List coalition that represents Palestinian citizens of Israel at the Israeli parliament:“The state which I am a citizen of occupies my people. We must free both peoples of the occupation.” He led a chant: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” Odeh underlined an essential set of political principles: “We must establish a democratic camp around common basic principles and a clear call to end the occupation, a call for equality, democracy and social justice for all the state’s citizens.”
Peace Now’s Director General Avi Buskila, called this a time when there must be a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But this call is not altogether clear to many Palestinians and Israelis alike. Israel’s Channel 2 news shows 47 percent of Israelis still support a two-state solution based on 1967 borders, while 39 said were opposed, and 14 percent said they do not know. This contradicts a poll released in March by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs which revealed that a majority of Israelis opposed any Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank. 79 percent of Israelis believed in the importance of maintaining a unified Jerusalem under Israeli control, which is in stark contradiction with longstanding international peace negotiations and international law.
This also contradicts the Palestinian aspiration and conviction according to which two-thirds of Palestinians do not feel that a two-state solution is any longer viable. In fact, Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as untenable and doubtful to get a resilient peace. They prefer a bi-national state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. The bottom line for the Palestinians is that they must have their entitlement of human rights and self-determination. Not a Bantustan state which will leave them further shattered and be a way for Israel to hoodwink the international community.
Even though there is not parity between progressive Israelis, there are many shared principles, and these are outlined in the speech reproduced below.
Please read and disseminate.
Ranjan Solomon
Editor
‘Opinion’ is based on a Maan news report
’50 years of occupation is 50 years too many
Eli Bitan
Thousands of Israelis attend a left-wing rally calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, May 27, 2017. (Flash90)
The following is the full text of Local Call blogger and editor Eli Bitan’s speech in front of 10,000 left-wing protesters at Saturday’s anti-occupation rally:
My name is Eli Bitan. I grew up in Ramat Beit Shemesh within an ultra-Orthodox family. I studied in a Shas-run school and later on in a yeshiva in Bnei Brak, two very Haredi institutions. Like most Israelis, I was raised on the ethos that Israel stretches out its hand in peace. I was raised to believe that Israelis want peace, and will do everything they can to achieve it. That there is a small, marginal group — ideological settlers — who view war as victory and revere land over life.
The ultra-Orthodox, as opposed to what many believe in Israel, are moderate when it comes to these issues. Two of its most prominent leaders over the past 50 years held clear dovish positions: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who granted halakhiclegitimacy to the peace deal with Egypt and political legitimacy to the Oslo Accords, and Rabbi Elazar Shach, who did not allow the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party to join Menachem Begin’s government until he pledged not to go to war without the former’s approval. Shach gave hundreds of political speeches in which he repeated the halakhic worldview, which sanctifies human life over land. No, this is not a Left that speaks about equality and human rights, but this is not a sector that opposes the two-state solution, as has been proven time and time again.
Only once I grew up and learned the distant and recent history did I understand how far we — all of us — have been led astray. Our bleeding hand is outstretched in peace, yet not the hands of our prime ministers and elected officials, which have been responsible for 50 years of dispossession, theft, and occupation of the Palestinians. Through deceptions, both internal and external, the settlers in the government are doing everything they can to maintain conflict and war, which creates more victims from both people on a daily basis. And yet, despite the rise of a violent right-wing, the majority of people in Israel and Palestine believe in and want two states for two people.
I am a young man, there are people in the crowd who are veteran activists against the occupation who have paid a big price for this struggle. It is my honor to stand before you and speak tonight.
I remember the first time I came to Rabin Square to a protest. I was a 17-year-old yeshiva student dressed in a white dress shirt and carrying a black jacket in my bag. Just like back then, today I look around and ask myself where is everybody? Where are all the Israelis who pay the terrible price for the occupation? I stood there alone with my white shirt and black kippa. Today there are a few dozen ultra-Orthodox, but this is not enough. There are hundreds and thousands of young haredim, men and women, who discover the heavy price they have paid for the political alliance with the Right. Our role is to make them feel at home, to create an alliance between struggles, not to let the differences make us forget that we all live on this land, and that yes — ending the occupation is everyone’s task, everyone who lives here.
Fifty years of occupation, of an enormous, never-ending injustice, force us to stop working within our comfort zones, to join new groups, and to let Palestinians lead the struggle. As the Right divides us, it is incumbent that we make connections. As the Right incites, we must meet and talk. As they try to put up walls to divide us into classes, tribes, and sectors, we must break through the differences they invented and join together. As the Right celebrates 50 years on the deck of the Titanic, we must shine a light on the occupation and say, without fear: these have been 50 years too many.