PORTUGUESE
PEACE ACTIVISTS WRITE TO THE HANDSTAND.
Letter of Solidarity to the
objectors of the Israeli Army
by Benjamin von Mendelssohn, IGF, 2nd of April 2002
To the
courageous soldiers who say "NO!
"We will not go on fighting beyond the 'green
line' for the purposes of domination, expulsion,
starvation and humiliation of an entire people".
From a declaration of combat officers and soldiers of the
IDF published in the Ha'aretz on the 27th of January
2002.
My name is Benjamin von Mendelssohn and I work at the
"Institute for Global Peace Work" in Tamera,
Portugal. We in Tamera read the declaration quoted above
and hope began to rise.
I am not a young Israeli soldier who is asked to fulfil
the inhuman orders of the occupation. I do not know what
I would do if I were in this situation. I live in the
relative safety of a peace project in Portugal. From here
I want to express my deep respect, my gratitude and my
solidarity to the growing number of young men who refuse
to serve in the occupied territories.
It is a service of peace to the world to take on the
consequences that this decision brings along in a
militaristic society.
I know the story of a friend of mine who served in the
IDF. He realized the insanity of it when his best friend
was blown to pieces right next to him. He quit the army
and quit the country.
But he also told me about the fascination to hold a gun,
the surge of power that one feels when you "can take
somebody down from a 100 meters distance as a
sniper".
This is the disease of a male society. We get trained in
what it means to be a man, right from the beginning. We
hardly get trained in what it means to be a human.
But we young men should grow up instead of just growing
old. We need to quit using violence to compensate the
fear that we have inside. Fear that we project to the
outside and then run fighting against it. Fear that
threatens to strangle the whole globe.
I hope more and more young men start to become fighters
against that fear, freedom fighters. What about using all
our male strength in body and mind for the protection of
our planet?
If this movement of courageous soldiers who say
"NO!" to war - inside or outside - as the first
Israeli soldiers do right now, would grow bigger, big
enough that the discriminating punishments can not be
kept up, then I could believe in a beginning of a peace
process.
They need our support now. The support of their mothers,
who do not want to loose their sons; of their fathers,
who might serve in the army themselves, but nevertheless
recognize the new; of their friends who know that it is
easier to be courageous together.
They need the support of international peace workers and
peace initiatives who can provide rest, healing and a new
orientation - simply through the advantage of not being
involved directly.
And then we all need a perspective, a peace plan in which
we can believe. We need models for this peace. Places
where peace can be researched, seen and felt. Places
where peace and trust can grow between humans, between
humans and animals, plants and all of creation.
May these courageous soldiers be the beginning of a
stronger global peace movement.
May they grow into part of a movement for a free earth.
To the Homepage of the objectors and to their
declaration at http://www.seruv.org.il/
"The Courage to Refuse - campaign" at http://www.couragetorefuse.org
Shalom and Salaam!
Benjamin von Mendelssohn©2002
IGF - Institute for Global Peacework, Tamera, Portugal
Further information:
IGF - Institute for Global Peace Work Location:
Healing Biotope I Tamera
Monte do Cerro
P - 7630 Colos
Portugal
Tel.: ++351 - 283 635 306 email: igf@tamera.org Web: http://www.tamera.org
"
PEACE FOR PALESTINE
THE PLAN OF THE PEACE VILLAGES.
Essay by Dieter Duhm©2002
The Middle East is about more than the
fate of two peoples. If peace is achievable here then
something new will have been achieved for human kind. In
this war the potential conflict between all of humanity
is revealed. Peace in the Middle East is not only of
regional importance but also of planetary significance.
In the following text I want to highlight a number of
aspects and bring a call for active support.
In Israel a new peace movement is being
born. In spite of severe sanctions, a growing number of
soldiers object to military service or the murderous
orders in the Occupied Territories. In a public
declaration they state: "We will not go on fighting
beyond the ‘green line’ for the purposes of
domination, expulsion, starvation and humiliation of an
entire people". Hundreds of soldiers signed this
declaration. Their courage deserves our gratitude. A sign
of hope is apparent. May it be followed by many more.
No longer can the violations of
international law committed by the Israelis against their
neighbours be inactively observed. Many Israelis know
little truth about the situation as true information is
rarely accessible. The Palestinian Intifada is not the
cause but the consequence of an endless series of human
rights violations by the Israelis. Draining fresh water
resources, cutting down the olive groves, destroying
Palestinian homes with bulldozers are all examples, are
all stains in a cruel line of humiliation and violence.
These things must be known to understand the
uncontrollable hate of the Palestinian people. The
extreme measures taken by the Israelis reflect the fatal
self-consciousness of a "master race". It
appears as if a section of the Jewish people now do to
others as has been done to them for centuries. The
terrifying logic of history, assuming its rule until true
powers of peace enter the path of new solutions and
reconciliation.
The Palestinians also have to
contribute to this solution. There is no sense in
defending honour with violence. The spiral of violence
will not be stopped through violence, suicides are heroic
but no means to peace. In order to attain peace direct,
visible and humane reconciliation on both sides is
needed. The youth on both sides needs new songs, new ways
and concepts of meeting and living together. The thought
of peace villages has to be seen within this context.
Israel has a cruel history. Jerusalem
has been a crucial point for religious and political
events for 3000 years. The Jewish people were bound to
their God and country in a very special way. The
spiritual background of the Zionist movement cannot be
ignored. For the Jewish people to find a new home after
centuries of persecution and Diaspora left its mark. The
founding history of the State of Israel was necessarily a
history of pain on both sides.
However the current events are not just
the consequence of this pain. Both military and financial
superiority has been adopted to destroy an entire people
step by step and encage them into the Ghettos. This is
not said out from a place of hate as we do not hate the
Jewish people. But things must be clearly defined in
order for the Palestinian people to reclaim a voice in
the world. Otherwise more desperate actions will be
unavoidable. These words are also there to give support
to Israeli peace workers who are as stunned by the daily
injustice as we are. But paramount is the wish to search
for a solution together.
Israel against Palestine: this is not
only one people fighting another people, not only one
religion fighting another religion but an imperialistic
system of power fighting an almost helpless people.
Israel is not fighting alone. As an important stronghold
for the American "world order" it is supported
by the US with weapons and money. Recently, Hillary
Clinton publicly sympathised with Ariel Sharon. Veiled
behind this conflict is an international power cartel
that recognizes Israel as an important strategic point
for globalisation.
Human rights violations occurring in
Palestine are, right now, occurring all over the world.
The entire globe is dominated by the suppression of
imperialistic economic powers against helpless peoples.
There is hardly a farming family freely running their own
land, hardly a village not threatened by the relentless
methods of worldwide exploitation. Global terror is not
the desperate actions of individual rebels, but the power
strategies of international finance and their
representatives all over the world. The same structures
of violence are reflected by this system globally. The
same structures of pain are left in its wake everywhere.
The tears of a Palestinian mother mourning for her dead
child are the same tears as a mother in Israel, in
Chechnya, in Sierra Leone or in Nicaragua, the same in
Manhattan and in Afghanistan. The sorrow for a lost
husband or lover, the pain of a destroyed home, the
freezing of refugees on their endless trails, the hate
towards the cynical suppressors, the unavoidable desire
for revenge, mourning on one side and jubilation on the
other. Everywhere are the same structures of a deeply
split human race.
The causes of global violence lies not
only in the power politics of corporate companies, banks,
the military and secret services. They also lie in the
misguided orientation of the entire human civilization.
Humanity has lost its anchor. The anchor lays in the
unity and holiness of life and the interconnectedness of
all beings in nature.. The human world has to reconnect
with the higher orders of life and creation. Peace,
healing and a true home on earth can only be found when
it is shared with all other beings. The earth belongs to
all of us; humans, animals, plants, rivers, and
mountains. All of us are part of the big unity of life we
must return in order to build a new planetary culture of
peace.
Healing is sacred. If peace is wanted
then it is necessary to build a society in where human
life is re-embedded into the holy matrix, the basis of
all life. We need peace villages that have the strength
to develop such models and we need people with the
strength to build such peace villages. A single fully
functioning peace village, the size of a few hundred
people, could trigger an iterative process throughout the
entire earth comparable to the "butterfly
effect" in chaos research. If a few such peace
villages were built successfully in different places, a
global healing process would already be active.
The thought of peace villages is not
unfamiliar to the Jewish tradition. It was religious Jews
who set up the Chassidic communities around their founder
Baalschem during the 18th century. It was the
Jewish representatives of a humane socialism who laid the
foundations for the Kibbutz movement a hundred years ago.
The Zionist movement, widely linked today with the
international power cartel had, initially, a very
spiritual background. They wanted to renew the covenant
that their ancestors had made with their god 3000 years
ago. They wanted to reunite their people on the basis of
this covenant. For a faithful Jew this was not an
imperialistic thought but a deeply religious one. The
move from the Diaspora into the Holy Land was the
beginning of a new life for many Jews. It is similar to
many of us today who experience the move from industrial
mega-societies into new forms of living as the beginning
of a new life.
Palestine/Israel is located in a
special place on this earth. In Palestine, the town of
Jericho was founded 10,000 years ago, one of the oldest
towns in human history. The old capital Jerusalem is a
political and religious centre point of history for 3000
years now. The temple of Salomon (built 3000 years ago)
held enough secrets to trigger the movement of the
Templars in the medieval times (under the guidance of
Bernard of Clairvaux, the most powerful catholic bishop
at that time). Today "The Dome of Rock", built
by Muslims, crowns the same place, beneath several stages
of earlier history. Much was struggled for here, much
attempted, much hoped for and much destroyed. Jerusalem,
Israel, Palestine: these are not only political
definitions, they are also symbols of a highly committed
search of human kind. Israel/Palestine is an
acupuncture point in the spiritual energy system of the
earth. If the implantation of a peace information through
the method of a real peace village would succeed here, it
would have the effect of a signal to the world.
Already human processes are experienced
in Israel and Palestine that move the question of peace
to us in a new way. On both sides there are women and men
who do not preach hate and revenge any longer, for they
have suffered too much. There are peace workers who
understood, by their own suffering, the suffering of
their supposed enemies, forever. Is it not possible to
build up a huge model of reconciliation, forever?
The day will come when we will realize,
through tears, what we have done to those considered
enemies. The day will come when we will realize, through
tears, what we have done to all the animals. And the day
will come when the two halves of humanity – men and
women – will realize what they have done to each
other. Reconciliation is the central motive of the peace
villages. We need places on earth where wounds can heal.
Finally, a few words regarding the
possibility of realising a better world. In theory it is
hardly a problem. The question is only whether there will
be enough people who think and act accordingly. I
reasoned the theoretical possibility for global peace in
my book "The Holy Matrix".
We still talk in a subjunctive mode but
want to state that, already, work on the concrete
preparations of peace villages has been going for a few
years. The "Institute for Global Peace Work" in
Portugal was founded for this purpose and now enters the
public domain to invite dedicated people to join in
co-operation and support. It is desirable that many
committed people take in these ideas and disseminate them
into a worldwide ring of peace. This year (August 2002)
we will hold an International Peace Camp where we expect
about 40 participants from Israel and Palestine.
For the hope of all who love, for new
models for life in Israel and Palestine, Salaam! Shalom!
Further information:IGF - Institute for
Global Peace Work
Location: Healing Biotope I Tamera,Monte do CerroP - 7630
Colos,Portugal
Tel.: ++351 - 283 635 306
email: igf@tamera.org
Web: http://www.tamera.org
A young
israeli refuses to enlist in the army.
STATEMENT:
**********
Here is a statement that Yair Khilou has prepared for the
occasion of his imprisonment:
My name is Yair Khilou and I am 18 years old. I have
refused to enlist in the army, and will soon be sent to
military prison for that. I decided to write this
statement before I am imprisoned because I believe that
the reasons motivating me in my refusal to enlist in the
army are shared by many people.
When I am asked to become part of a large and violent
body such as the Israeli army, I should ask in what
activities this body is engaged and whom does it serve.
My parents, teachers and peers might answer that the army
of the state is necessary to preserve my own security and
the security of the citizens of the State of Israel. I
desire very much that there will be security for the
citizens of Israel and for me. And still, I find this
answer to be unsatisfactory. I fail to understand how
does that pure Jewish space, which the State of Israel
persistently tries to create by force since its
establishment increases our security. I fail to
understand how the repression of the Palestinian
resistance to Israel by means of state terror - more
cruel and of wider scale even than the counter terror
which it provokes - serves the society that I am part of.
How does the activity of
the state, implemented through the army, can benefit me
and those I care for? The 'sterile' Jewish space created
by the State of Israel is a ghetto for its Jewish
residents as well. It prevents them from integrating into
the Middle East. Nobody is safe in this space - neither
Jews nor Arab
Still, my opponents might claim, the State of Israel
is a democracy and its army is the people's army. I
wonder where these people live. I have no ability to
affect the actions of the army, although my friends and I
definitely try. I am unable to stop war, unemployment,
inequalities. The
vast majority of Israeli citizens wish to change this
state of affairs. And still, the state does everything to
block peace, welfare and equality. Mysteriously,
everything ends up serving the interests of capitalists
and generals. The Israeli military men and capitalists,
together with their
Palestinian peers, do everything they can to remain in
power. Their mass media and educational system spread
vicious nationalistic propaganda, hatred and fear.
Thus they divide and rule us. They incite against each
other Arabs and Jews, East and West, while they continue
to reign. These are our real enemies, preventing us from
attaining physical and economical security. Against them
Arabs and Jews should stand together.
I am not willing to accept such a reality. I am all
the more unwilling to contribute to its continuation and
fortification by serving in the Israeli army or in any
other terrorist organisation.
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