Muslims, Jews Renew Efforts to Forge Code of Ethics

By Pat and Samir Twair

In the aftermath of Zionist Organization of America director Morton Klein’s successful bid to pressure House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt to withdraw the appointment of Salam al-Marayati to a national counter-terrorism commission, 45 leaders of major Jewish congregations and Muslim organizations met in an effort to salvage bruised relations.

The Islamic Center of Southern California was the setting for the session at which representatives of both groups pledged to renew efforts to agree on a code of ethics for public debate. Klein’s group also had managed to scuttle an earlier code of ethics that had been produced in Los Angeles.

The Islamic center did not invite members of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and other Zionist groups that had urged Gephardt to dismiss al-Marayati from the anti-terrorism commission

Participants in the meeting agreed to organize a permanent body to meet regularly to tackle controversial issues.

Allen I. Freehling, senior rabbi at University Synagogue, will facilitate future meetings on Jewish-Muslim dialogue.

“Qissatuna” (Our Story) exhibition at AFSC

An exhibition of 50 black-and-white photos depicting the violent removal of Palestinians from their land by the Israelis from 1948 to the present was on view in July at the American Friends Service Committee in Pasadena.

Entitled “Qissatuna (Our Story): A Palestinian Narrative,” the photos were gathered by Sabeel, an Ecumenical Christian Center for Palestinian Liberation Theology in Jerusalem.

In keeping with the theme, several Palestinians were invited to discuss their families’ recollections of being driven from their homeland at a program marking the opening of the exhibition. Moderator Linda Lotz introduced the speakers: Suhaila Nasser, Yacoub Aftim Saba, Dr. Mahmoud Ibrahim and Sami Odeh.

Inasmuch as the issue of refugees who should be repatriated or compensated will be a major point in future negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, Lotz asked the rhetorical question, why do people leave their homes? This was the question each speaker addressed.

Nasser said she was born in West Jerusalem where her father was an international attorney and her mother was an educator. In 1948, they lived in a five bedroom, four bathroom house.

“Because our house was so large, we took in 48 neighbors when the shooting began,” she recalled. “Zionist forces on a hilltop fired at our house continuously. They shouted through loud speakers: “Save your lives. Save your children. Leave.”

Finally, her family departed, hiding in a flatbed truck headed for Bethlehem.

“We left behind our large home, property, a second house and my father’s law office and legal library. When we heard the Israelis had assassinated United Nations mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, my father said, ‘That’s it. We’ll never be able to go back.’ He was never the same again.”

Saba, the next speaker, said Israelis confiscated his home on his 20th birthday in 1948.

“I saw people running in the streets of Lydda and I left work. When I arrived home, an Israeli officer stood in my parents’ living room. He said, ‘We need your house.’ When I asked where my family was, he said he had no idea.”

Saba was reunited with his relatives in Birzeit where they lived under trees for one week, and eventually took refuge in Gaza. Saba lived in Libya for 35 years and immigrated to the United States in 1978.

“The Zionists expelled every Palestinian in Lydda in one day,” he said. “It was an Arab city, no Jews owned property there. More than 90 percent of my town was demolished.”

Professor Ibrahim, who teaches Middle East history at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, said Saba’s story is much like the story of his own parents.

His mother and father were part of a forced evacuation of Arab villagers ordered in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. Several months later, Dr. Ibrahim was born in a refugee camp in Ramallah. His family continued to live in camps until they emigrated to the U.S. when he was a teen-ager.

“The Zionists carried out a systematic pattern in which Arab villages were demolished and trees were planted over them,” Dr. Ibrahim said. “This is how they camouflage their ethnic cleansing. My town was destroyed, trees were planted there and it now is called Mexico Park because donations from Mexico paid for the saplings.”

Dr. Ibrahim said there were two phases in the Zionist strategy of eradicating Palestinians from Palestine.

“The first went into effect on Nov. 19, 1947, when the U.N. voted to partition Palestine into two states. From then until May 15, 1948, the Haganah consolidated its territory by forcibly driving Palestinians from their homes. There were no Arab broadcasts urging the Palestinians to flee the country, but the Israelis have perpetrated this lie. The images we have been seeing on TV of Kosovars being threatened under the gun to evacuate is a painful reminder of the Palestinian tragedy.”

Dr. Ibrahim said 450,000 Palestinians were forced to flee during the first phase. Then, in July and August of 1948, another 400,000 Palestinians were pushed off their land.

“Imagine the conflict, the turmoil of 850,000 Palestinians forced into homelessness within a matter of nine months.

“I hope the Palestinian Authority will wake up to the fact that Palestinians have the right to return just as the Jews do,” he continued. “As for the Zionist settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, I advocate that if they want to remain, they are welcome, but as citizens of the Palestinian state. Obviously, the majority won’t stay; they are accustomed to privileges and will be afraid. But those settlers who return to Israel should leave their housing intact for returning Palestinian refugees.”

AAPG Hears Egyptian Consul

“The Future of American-Arab Relations” was the title of a talk by Egyptian Consul General Hagar Islambouli before a July 24 program of the Arab American Press Guild. The occasion was a celebration of the 47th anniversary of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s July 23rd Revolution.

Noting that Egypt’s economy suffered with each successive war with Israel in 1948, 1956 and 1967, the consul general said the Egyptian people gained confidence after the 1973 war with the Zionists. However, it was only after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1978 that U.S.-Egyptian relations improved.

Ms. Islambouli said the U.S. must play a big role in ensuring that Israel upholds the Wye agreements in its negotiations with the Palestinians. Hopefully, she said, if negotiations are successful with Syria and Lebanon, a new stage of peace and prosperity will be introduced in the 21st century.

Islamic Groups Send Aid to Turkey

Islamic Relief, based in Burbank, has so far wired $180,000 to its office in England for emergency assistance to victims of the Aug. 17 earthquake in western Turkey. The organization has established a warehouse in Adapazari, Turkey, where rice, sugar, macaroni, canned foods, tea, olive oil and water are dispatched to stricken areas.

Executive director Jehan Gir reports the group sponsored an emergency fundraising dinner Aug. 29 at California State University, Northridge, where $100,000 was raised.

The five-year-old organization sent supplies to Iran when it was struck by an earthquake in 1997, to Afghanistan after two earthquakes in 1998, and to Bangladesh in 1998 after it was ravaged by a cyclone. The group does not restrict itself to assisting only Muslims. It sent emergency relief to Oklahoma City after the terrorist bombing of 1995 and again to Oklahoma after a devastating May 8 tornado this year.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers based in Los Angeles.