World Affairs Council Considers Other Side of Israeli-Palestinian Coin

by Pat and Samir Twair

“Saving Israel in spite of itself.”

“Cutting U.S. aid to an intransigent Israel.”

“A pro-Israel lobby that controls Congress.”

These were preposterous, outlandish ideas to many American Jews who attended an historic June 11 program co-sponsored by the World Affairs Council and Arab American Republican Club of Orange County. Nearly 600 people turned out for the event which originally was to have featured Palestine Legislative Council member Hanan Ashrawi, who at the last minute was unable to travel to California from Ramallah. After a few frantic calls from Col. Joe Hunt, a board member of both the WACOC and AARC, Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, agreed to save the day and share the podium with the other originally scheduled speakers, University of Massachusetts chancellor professor and Palestine National Council member Naseer Aruri.

The June 11 program was historic because it was the first time in Southern California that so large a mainstream organization as the World Affairs Council had co-sponsored a program on the Middle East peace process that included the Arab perspective. Initially, the slate was to have consisted of a prominent Zionist and an Arab, but after a series of suicide bombings broke out in Israel on Feb. 26, the Jewish contingent bowed out. According to George Hanna of the AARC, his group continued its plans and succeeded in getting a commitment from Ashrawi to address the group.

Even though Ashrawi was unable to attend in person, a telephone interview WACOC President Sir Eldon Griffiths conducted with her June 9 was aired over the public address system. As slides of Ashrawi appeared on two screens in the darkened room, she reminded the audience that before Shimon Peres lost the May 29 election to Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Labor Party hadn’t exactly been God’s gift to peace.

The Jerusalem-born, U.S.-educated Aruri presented a scholarly assessment of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The Madrid Conference ushered in talks between Palestinians and Israelis, he said, but after 18 months discussions were at an impasse because the Israelis didn’t want to admit or deal with the fact that Palestinian land is under occupation. This, he explained, led to the back channel of Oslo, which never did come to terms with the fact of occupation.

“What is important about Oslo is that it’s not a peace agreement, but an agreement to reach agreement,” he stated. “The Oslo accords were based on the notion the West Bank and Gaza were to be disputedthat they weren’t occupied territory. So, unlike South Africa where apartheid has been dismantled, the Palestinians have been invited to final status negotiations to discover whether or not they have rights.”

Dr. Aruri predicts an Oslo III will be created by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He foresees this as further diminishing Palestinian rights in the name of Israeli security, with Israeli troops permanently situated on the border with Jordan and West Bank hilltops. Other dimensions of Oslo III will be the refusal to allow the return of diaspora and refugee Palestinians and the non-negotiable status of Jerusalem.

Curtiss called Netanyahu’s “peace for peace” slogan a formula for no peace at all that pits Israel’s four million Jews against 200 million Arabs backed up by one billion Muslims. He noted that the late George Ball, former under secretary of state in the administration of President John F. Kennedy, had written an article in Foreign Affairs magazine in the 1970s entitled, “How to Save Israel in Spite of Itself,” and recommending that the U.S. tie aid to Israel to Israel’s performance at the peace table.

“There still is time to save Israel in spite of itself,” Curtiss stated, “by putting strings on U.S. aid to Israel.”

The Q and A session of the Orange County event offered some heated dialogue.

The initial question dealt with Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s first public statement following the confirmation of Netanyahu’s election victory in which he said the U.S. would have to adapt its policy to the new situation in Israel.

“It was a disgraceful thing to say,” answered Curtiss. He opined that if Israel hopes to enjoy continued American military and economic support on the present scale, it should be expected to adapt to U.S. policy.

Seated at the head table was former California Republican Congressman Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, who was asked to state his opinion of the incoming Likud government. “I’m afraid the election puts us back to seeing American policy a captive of the Israeli lobby instead of doing what is in the best interests of the U.S.,” McCloskey commented. “No politician is the least bit critical of Israel or dares propose a cutback on U.S. aid to Israel because he knows he won’t get re-elected.”

When asked if the Likud victory served as a wake-up call to the Gulf Arabs, Aruri stated: “Arab states already felt a threat was looming and Bibi’s election put the frosting on the cake. Egypt and Syria feel threatened by the Turkish–Israeli alignment and they fear Jordan may be involved. Peres and Netanyahu aren’t that different except in their style, but fears among Arab nations for their security may signal a major realignment in the region.”

The inevitable question was posed to Curtiss: “Why do these large Arab nations surrounding tiny Israel want part of its land?”

The response: “An even tinier nation is asking for only 22 percent of the Mandate of Palestine to form a nation of its own. The Israeli government wants sovereignty over the 78 percent of the Mandate of Palestine we now call Israel, as well as 65 percent of the 22 percent we call Palestine for Jewish settlements, military installations, bypass roads and public lands. You can’t have a durable peace based on fragmentation. It is a suicidal decision the Israelis have voted for.”

An editor of The Orange County Register asked what would happen to the peace process if Netanyahu’s government carried out a pre-emptive strike on Iran.

“The peace process would be dead,” answered Aruri, once more bringing up the possibility of a regional realignment among Syria, Iran, Egypt and the Gulf states.

The program made an impact, judging by two meetings so far convened in Orange County to plan a follow-up program for mid-November which will include a series of panel discussions on the Middle East at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda and at Chapman College in Orange, as well as a World Affairs Council meeting jointly sponsored by the AARC and Jewish groups.

Curtiss and Aruri also made a joint appearance at the University of California, Irvine following a similar format, with 45 minutes for formal presentations and 45 minutes for questions.

More Fireworks When Zogby Addresses L.A. World Affairs Council

Eight days after the tension-filled World Affairs Council session in Orange County, the Q and A session at a Los Angeles World Affairs Council meeting passed the point of civility when supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu challenged keynote speaker Dr. James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute.

In his eloquent assessment of prospects for peace in the Middle East, Dr. Zogby stressed that the deeply divided Israeli society has half the people committed to moving into a new world and the other half operating under the old paradigm that, "we’ll keep the land and maintain the power––like it or not.” Zogby likened this extremist coalition to individuals who, if they were Arabs, would be called “ayatollahs, fanatics and religious fundamentalists.”

Taking questions, Dr. Zogby was confronted by an elderly man who voiced umbrage at Zogby’s comparison of Jewish settlers with ayatollahs.

“Bear with me long enough to explain,” Zogby stated, “that these Jewish settlers in the heart of the Arab city of Hebron deface Arab buildings with the Star of David like the Nazis used the swastika. Roads in the center of town are closed to Palestinian traffic, Hebrew graffiti in the central market praise the American settler, Baruch Goldstein, who machine-gunned dozens of Muslims worshipping in the Ibrahimi mosque of Hebron. Many of these settlers are racists ––one said Arabs and gentiles have no souls so it is o.k. to kill them.”

Zogby’s antagonist was exhibiting apoplexy as he ignored the moderator’s admonitions to cease and shouted out that Netanyahu is a fine man and shouldn’t be criticized.

Zogby responded: “I’ve been attacked by my own community for being too understanding of the Israeli position. If you can’t open yourself up and understand the suffering of the Palestinians, then you can’t see there is no distinction between a suicide bomber and Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon.”

In his speech, Zogby pointed out the Israeli people chose a different team–– a team that is not supportive of the principles of the peace process. Nonetheless, he predicted that Israeli business, which has prospered with three years of peace, will put pressure on Netanyahu not to destroy a good thing. Noting that Israeli per capita income has increased by $3,500 since 1993, Zogby said Israel’s gross domestic product is greater than that of Spain and is fast approaching that of Britain. “These statistics cause many to question how U.S. aid to Israel can be justified,” he noted. He also said European states planning to do new business with Israel may back out if Netanyahu refuses to uphold the conditions in agreements signed by the Israeli government. Already since the Likud victory, he said, a German company fearing instability in the region has suspended plans for an $800 million plant in Israel.

Another hostile question dealt with the intentions of Hezbollah and Hamas. Stressing that Hezbollah is a Lebanese organization with social and health institutions and a military wing dedicated to driving the Israelis out of south Lebanon, Zogby said Hamas could easily have been strangled in Gaza if jobs had been forthcoming. “Gaza was so simple to solve,” he said. “It is a small area that could have been transformed within six or seven months with the injection of the financial aid promised it. Turning Gaza into a police state is a bad idea, insisting that [Palestinian President Yasser] Arafat start military courts and literally giving him the go-ahead to arrest the opposition and suppress his critics is wrong. Hebron is still under Israeli control. Five of the six suicide bombers came from Hebron and they passed through Israeli checkpoints—not Palestinian—to get to Jerusalem, but Arafat was forced to arrest Hamas members in Hebron.”

Scandal Continues in Moskowitz’s Little Acre

The saga of Hawaiian Gardens City Councilmember Kathleen Navejas’ one-woman fight against a multimillionaire, Israeli right wing supporter, Bingo Club King Irving Moskowitz, continues. Two recall elections have been set for Sept. 9one for Navejas and another for the three city council members she accuses of being on the payroll of Dr. Moskowitz, who has sent millions of dollars from bingo club profits to extremist anti-Arab groups based in Israel. Operating much like a fiefdom supported by profits from its bingo club, Hawaiian Gardens, the smallest city in Los Angeles County, is faced with bankruptcy. The reason, according to Navejas and her supporters, is that operating costs needed for a police force and other city expenses are being withheld by the retired physician, who lives in Florida. Navejas says Moskowitz representatives now have phoned her repeatedly to tell her the doctor will be happy to provide funds to help the city out of its financial bind at whatever time she drops her lawsuit against him and the three city council members.

One possible scenario for this ongoing one-sided battle is for the state attorney general to step in and incorporate Hawaiian Gardens into Los Angeles County and declare the bingo club defunct. Navejas believes investigations should continue, however, into how monies have been distributed by Moskowitz to city officials, channeled into “security services” protecting his interests in the tiny city, and how his non-profit Irving Moskowitz Foundation can legally make tax-exempt donations of millions of dollars overseas to virulently anti-peace, ultra-right-wing groups in Israel.

Dar el-Tifl, USA to Aid Lebanese Orphans

In the aftermath of the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in such villages as Deir Yassin at the hands of Jewish terrorist militiamen from Menachem Begin’s Irgun Zvai Leumi in 1948, stunned Hind al-Husseini worried over the plight of 55 orphaned children who survived the bloody assaults. On her 32nd birthday—April 25, 1948—she brought the orphans into Dar el-Tifl, the large Husseini family home in Jerusalem in which she had been born. Over the years, Miss Hind, as she came to be known, continued to bring needy children and orphans into Dar el-Tifl. Today it has expanded into a school with kindergarten, elementary, intermediate and secondary sections, and a College of Literature for Girls offering bachelor’s degrees in Arabic, English, social sciences and Palestinian history and heritage. Miss Hind never married, but her lifetime of dedication to destitute children did not go unnoticed. She received the Jordan Globe Medallion for social work in 1983 and the Jordan Globe Medallion for education in 1985. The German government presented the pioneering Palestinian with the First Degree Medallion in 1989.

In 1992, in California, Dahlal Mutahdi, a Saudi citizen with a master’s degree in international health and health education, decided to start a U.S. organization to support an institution that helps needy Palestinians. She visited numerous orphanages and schools and decided to found Dar El-Tifl Committee–USA as an arm for the Jerusalem institution that hosts 1,500 orphans and destitute youth. The USA group also has initiated an orphan sponsorship program at a cost of $1 per day, an orphan scholarship fund and a mental health assessment project providing counseling and follow-up by an American psychologist. Much of this is funded through the organization’s annual fund-raiser which, this year, was dedicated to the memory of Miss Hind.

However, after Israel’s latest 17-day blitz of Lebanon this past spring, the organization decided to send half of this year’s proceeds to needy children in south Lebanon. More than $10,000 was raised by the 1996 program in Los Angeles, and in mid-July Mutahdi hand-delivered checks to Dar el-Tifl in Jerusalem and to emergency relief officials in South Lebanon.

Keynote speaker at the 1996 event was new American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) president Dr. Hala Maksoud. “Our Lebanon After War” was her topic. Dr. Maksoud, who is from Lebanon, said her country faces a daunting task of rebuilding its infrastructure, health and educational services. “We have the unique historical opportunity to reconstruct a new society based on factors that made it successful in the past. We tend to glorify the ’60s and ’70s, but,” she warned, “it is not possible to recreate the past, which also had seeds of disaster that destroyed us.

“Israel is able to play havoc with Lebanon’s destiny because it is protected by the U.S. veto and can occupy south Lebanon in violation of U.N. Resolution 425. Israel stalls on withdrawal from the West Bank despite the U.S. commitment for peace. The U.S. State Department ban on American travel to Lebanon is another tool of Israel to impede Lebanon’s economic recovery,” she concluded.

On hand to commend Dar el-Tifl–USA for lending a helping hand to Lebanese children made homeless or orphaned by Israel’s latest assault on Lebanon was Lebanon’s Consul General Gebran Soufan, who commented: “I look forward to the happy moment when Palestinians can say ‘Our Palestine’ as we say ‘Our Lebanon.’”

Armenian Pope Visits California, Seeks Lebanese Unity

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, made his first pontifical visit to California June 20 to July 10, addressing more than 1,000 congregants at one sitting at the Universal Hilton Hotel and meeting with California Governor Pete Wilson. The Armenian pope’s visit to Southern California, where an estimated 55,000 Armenian members of his denomination live, was especially busy. The religious leader also is chairman of the World Council of Churches, and filled both roles when he spoke at Town Hall of Los Angeles, on “The Role of Religious Leaders in Forging Peace.”

One of the smaller and more emotional gatherings held for the Armenian pontiff was a reception hosted by Lebanese Consul General in Los Angeles Gebran Soufan. More than 70 dignitaries gathered in the envoy’s residence in Westwood, where Soufan explained: “Almost every area or quarter of Lebanon has a separate meaning: Bkerki is significant for the Maronites; Aramoun and Baaklin for the Muslims and Druze, and Antelias for the Armenians. In this sense,” he said, “the whole of Lebanon is the Holy See for God.”

Pope Aram responded: “Lebanon is not just a geographical area limited by boundaries but a message of love to the entire world. I come from Lebanon bringing with me the whole of Lebanon. There is only one Lebanon, and Lebanon is one with all its spiritual families, religious and national values from south to north and west to east. Lebanon is one with Christians and Muslims. Together, let us once again express a firm commitment to a Lebanon of love, peace, unity and reconciliation.”

Right of Return

“The role of the Palestine Liberation Organization is over. Now is the time for a new body to work on the future of the Palestinians.” So said Naseer Aruri, chancellor professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts and a founding member with Clovis Maksoud and Hisham Sharabi of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Palestinian Conference of Return and Self-Determination. Dr. Aruri was speaking in Los Angeles to recruit Arab-American organizations to circulate petitions calling for the right of Palestinians to return to Palestine and to have an independent state.

When asked if the conference will lead to a new Palestinian political party, Dr. Aruri said it is up to conferees to decide democratically what steps will be taken.

Judging by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric, Dr. Aruri predicts Israel will never admit a wrong has been done to the Palestinian people nor that Israel must remedy it.

“Anyone who thinks Netanyahu will concede to even the minimum aspirations of the Palestinians is hallucinating,” Dr. Aruri said, noting that signatures are being collected from Palestinians inside Israel as well as in Gaza and the West Bank. Ad hoc committees also are gathering names in major cities throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Will It Do Any Good?

The court of world opinion has always been important to Israelits image has been transformed in the three years since the historic White House handshake. Of course evidence of millions of signatures from Palestinians and especially non– Palestinians who believe in an independent Palestinian state should make some impression on international opinion, even if Israelis remain intransigent.

Taleb Salhab, national coordinator of the ad hoc preparatory committee, pointed out Palestinians must unite under one banner to counteract the newly elected Likud government’s four No’s: No to Jerusalem, No to halting settlements, No to withdrawal from the Golan, and No to a Palestinian state.

The Conference of Return and Self-Determination is based on the right to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The ad hoc committee has gone on record that a settlement based on agreements so far made between Israel and the Palestinian leadership can only lead to Palestinian submission to Israeli sovereignty, deletion of the Palestinian question from the international agenda, suppression of the Palestinian right of return, total Israeli control over Jerusalem and the settlements, and reduction of the Palestinians to the status of residents in their own land.

The first general meeting of the conference is tentatively slated for the end of the year or in early 1997 in Washington, DC. More information on acquiring petitions can be obtained by telephoning (202) 338-1290.