STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS

Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment

June, 2002

A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication

Peace

Editor’s note:

In June, Connections printed an article on AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Readers may be interested in reading a commentary on AIPAC written by Michael Massing titled “The Israel Lobby” in the June 10 issue of The Nation. It can be accessed from the web by clicking here

The Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict: an alternative to the War on Terror

The war on terror promises to be the most enduring legacy of the Bush presidency, and the Bush Administration is pushing ahead rapidly to expand the scope and duration of the war and to make the war economy and security state permanent.

The President says it will be a long and costly war. He does not know when or how it will end. He does not know, or is not saying, where it will go next. He believes this is a conflict of good versus evil, plain and simple. The country should trust him and his advisors to know the difference and to do whatever it takes to stop the evil.

The war is expanding on many fronts.

• U.S. troops are on the ground in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
• The Pentagon is sending hundreds of U.S. military advisors to the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan to help eliminate alleged “terrorist” cells.
• In his State of the Union message, the President declared Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to be an “axis of evil,” threatening unspecified consequences if they do not stop sponsoring international terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction.
• The Administration is now preparing the American public and foreign governments for possible U.S. military action to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
• In this hemisphere, the Administration is now considering lifting restrictions on U.S. military aid to Colombia so the Colombian military can use it to fight against leftist insurgents.

On the home front, the Bush Administration is asking the American people to send their sons and daughters to war and to pay over $2.7 trillion over the next five years for it, as well as, it seems, for anything else the Pentagon wants. Meanwhile, cities across the nation are being kept on a high state of alert, over $37 billion will be spent on homeland defense in FY2003, and the FBI and Justice Department have been granted broad, new, intrusive powers to investigate and detain persons within the U.S. suspected of association with terrorist groups.

How Should FCNL Respond In This Time of War?

Few are asking the questions that need to be asked.

• When will this war end?
• Who is the enemy?
• Where will it stop?
• How much will the war cost in lives, materiel, liberties, or international good will and understanding?
• How much national treasure will it drain away from efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts nonviolently or to advance the many other critical facets of human security at home and abroad?
• What will be the condition of humanity when it is all finished?
• What are the root causes of terrorism and war?
• Are there alternatives to war?
• How can terrorism and war be prevented nonviolently?

These are the questions FCNL is asking members of Congress, the Administration, and the American public. These are the questions our country must ask as it stands on the threshold of a permanent state of war. This is FCNL’s challenge for the second session of the 107th Congress.

A Practical Alternative to the War on Terrorism

Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict: Arms control and disarmament

• Promote nuclear disarmament, de-alerting, and non-proliferation
• Promote dismantlement and international control of weapons of mass destruction
• Promote reducing/controlling international sale and transfer of light weapons

Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict: International law and institutions

• Identify, articulate, and publicize non-military alternatives to war on terror
• Oppose expanding war to Iraq or elsewhere
• Promote just and nonviolent resolution of conflict between Israel and Palestine
• Promote just and nonviolent resolution of conflict in Colombia
• Develop model legislation that would contribute to the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict (e.g. global school lunch program or a “Marshall plan” for Afghanistan/Pakistan, etc.)
• Promote full U.S. engagement with and participation in the UN and other international institutions for the pacific settlement of disputes.

Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict: Federal budget priorities

• Shift military spending to increase funding for: humanitarian and development assistance; the Nunn-Lugar nuclear, chemical, biological weapons threat reduction initiative in Russia; cooperative international institutions dedicated to the advancement of human rights and the rule of law; international efforts to reduce the sale and transfer of weapons around the world and to control and eliminate weapons of mass destruction; assuring that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society are met.

Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict: Respecting human rights at home and abroad

• Preserve and advance human rights at home for all without regard for race, creed, religion, ethnicity, or citizenship, opposing arbitrary detentions, suspension of civil liberties, military tribunals, use of death penalty, etc.
• Promote the advancement of human rights around the world through bilateral and multilateral institutions and treaties, including U.S. ratification of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict: Environment and natural resources

• Energy policy — reduce role of oil as a source of violent international conflict by reducing U.S. dependency on imported oil through various methods to reduce consumption, energy efficiency improvements, and the development of renewable alternative energy resources

Friends Committee on National Legislation February 2002

ACTION: Contact FCNL, 245 Second Street, NE, Washington, DC, 20002-5795 USA phone: (202) 547-6000 fax: (202) 547-6019 email: fcnl@fcnl.org; www.fcnl.org/index.htm

A Call for Justice and Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians

We are saddened by the bloodshed coming from both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hundreds of innocent people have been killed or injured. We urge an end to this terrible cycle of violence. Fear, hatred, and despair can and must be transformed into dialogue and peaceful co-existence.

In the current situation, while some Palestinians carry out violent acts, the preponderance of violence has come from the Israeli military and police. Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land to create new Jewish settlements — a violation of basic human rights and a continuing provocation to violence. Despite widespread and increasing criticism from many countries, Israel can perpetuate itsviolence against the Palestinians because it has the military might to do so. Through massive military aid over many years, the United States has helped build the Israeli military into the fifth most powerful force in the world.

Like any people, Israel has a right to its security. But its aggression and denial of fundamental human rights to the Palestinians is undermining the very security it seeks. Such actions sow the seeds of bitter hatred that erupt in violence. Furthermore, the world community is turning against Israel.

We call on the United States government to re-evaluate its military and economic support of Israel. Future U.S. Assistance should be conditioned firmly on Israel’s commitment, shared mutually by the Palestinians, to create conditions of justice that will help ensure a lasting peace between the two peoples.

Building justice means new initiatives. Essential to peace would be the following:

• Establishing a sovereign Palestinian state in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, (with its capitol in historic East Jerusalem).

• Ending all Israeli settlement expansion, disarming settlers, and setting a timetable for removing all Israeli settlements from the West Bank and Gaza.

• Compensating for properties destroyed, seized, and/or confiscated by Israeli forces since 1948, and resolving the issue of exiled Palestinians right to return.

Though the U.S. could play a significant role in achieving these steps, we think the United Nations should lead the negotiations between legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people and the Israeli leaders. In the meantime, the U.N. should send peace keeping forces into areas of conflict to discourage and prevent continued confrontations and assure safety for people on both sides. We suggest further that the U.N. convene a regional peace conference involving all Middle East countries and that a key point on the agenda be the abolition throughout the region of all weapons of mass destruction, including Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

Join us and people in Israel-Palestine-Jews, Muslims, and Christians-who want to work toward reconciliation through justice and peace. Please contact your national representatives today.

This statement is a joint effort of the Modesto Committee for Peace in the Middle East and the Board of the Modesto Peace/Life Center. For more information, or to volunteer, contact:

Modesto Peace/Life Center
720 13th St.
P.O. Box 134
Modesto, CA 95353-01134
209-529-5750
modestoplc@ainet.com

Editor’s note: This is the official statement of the Modesto Peace/Life Center and its Board. However, there have been disagreements among some about emphasis, balance, and wording, and suggestions have been made to improve it. Toward that end, there will be a special meeting in September (date to be determined). Call the Center in September and watch our website for notice.

Stop the bomb where it starts: August 3 and 6, Lawrence Livermore Lab

(excerpted from a release from the  Livermore Conversion Project, by Myrtle Osner)

President Bush has called for the development of new, earth-penetrating nuclear bombs. The Nuclear Posture Review directs the Pentagon to draw up detailed plans to use them including against countries that do not possess nuclear weapons. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, China and Russia are among the nations targeted.

The Lawrence Livermore Lab is where these deadly new weapons are being designed and tested. We must stop the bomb where it starts!

Twenty years ago (1982) thousands of nonviolent protesters converged on the Livermore Lab to demonstrate their opposition to the escalating nuclear arms race (maybe you were there?). More than 1300 people were arrested. This helped focus public attention on the Lab and its secret work — designing and developing nuclear weapons.

When the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons didn’t go away. Today, new “advanced weapons concept teams” have been established at the Lab (and at Sandia and Los Alamos). And the recently-leaked Nuclear Posture Review identifies new scenarios in which the U.S. might use nuclear weapons. It’s time to go back to Livermore!

In 1982, the Cold War was at its height and Ronald Reagan was President. In order to protect us from the “evil empire,” Reagan presided over the biggest nuclear arms buildup in history. Then he came up with the idea for “Star Wars”, a “defensive shield” which he claimed would make nuclear weapons obsolete.

Today George W. Bush is President. To protect us from the “axis of evil,” the Nuclear Posture Review” gives us a “new strategic triad” consisting of “offensive strike forces, (including the old triad), “defenses” (including missile defenses) and a “revitalized” research and development infrastructure (including the nuclear weapons labs). The Bush administration’s real nuclear weapons agenda is fewer but newer (and extremely costly). We will have a broad spectrum of war-fighting capabilities intended to protect “U.S. interests and investments” around the world.

We think it’s time for a BIG showing at Livermore. You are invited to the commemoration of the 57th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Saturday, August 3. 11 a.m. Rally at Carnegie Park at Fourth and J Sts. in downtown Livermore, then march down East Ave. to the Lab. Those who choose will non-violently risk arrest at the gates.

There will be numerous speakers, musicians and artists. We will remember the devastation wrought by the atomic bombing and by war. As people of the Earth, we will gather in Livermore to say “never again” to nuclear weapons, to speak truth about the immorality of these weapons and to reject the “war on terrorism” and its attempt to secure “global domination” by designing new weapons of terror. We will dedicate ourselves anew to building a future based on peace, justice, compassion and harmony with the environment.

There will also be a vigil on August 6, 8:00 a.m. at the Lab’s West Gate.

ACTION: Contact the Livermore Conversion Project, P.O. Box 31835, Oakland, CA 94504. or TriValley Cares, (929)-443-7148; www.trivalleycares.org

Notice: The Modesto Peace/Life commemorates the Hiroshima bombing yearly in August. Details were not available at press time. Please call the Center at the end of July, 529-5750, or check the Calendar frequently at our website; www.ainet.com/connections

Non-Violence Guidelines

(from Livermore Conversion Project)

• We will harbor no anger but suffer the anger of the opponent*
• We will refuse to return the assault of the opponent
• We will refrain from insults and inappropriate language.
• We will protect opponents from insults or attack.
• If arrested, we will not resist. We will not go limp.
• If arrested, we will behave in an exemplary manner. We will not evade the legal consequences of our actions.
• Our attitude as conveyed through words, symbols and actions will be one of openness, friendliness and respect toward all other people we encounter, including Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory security officers and workers.
• We will not damage any property
• We will not bring or use any drugs or alcohol
• We will not run or use any threatening motions.
• We will carry no weapons.
• Without passing judgment on its use, we will not engage in symbolic blood pouring.
• Plans for our activities are shared with the authorities
• As members of the nonviolent demonstration, we will follow the directions of the designated coordinators. In the event of a serious disagreement, we will remove ourselves from the action.

Why Israel’s ‘seruvniks’ say enough is enough

By MICHAEL SFARD

It is said that in the first few years of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, no one seriously thought of holding on to these territories forever. It was at the time widely assumed, that these newly conquered lands were to be handed back to the Arabs as part of a peace agreement. I don’t remember those days.

I was raised in a different Israel. In my Israel the small fundamentalist group of Jewish settlers has always enjoyed more political power than their relative share in the Israeli population. In my Israel both left-wing and right-wing governments enabled the colonialisation of these occupied Palestinian lands. My Israel paid, and is still paying, a heavy moral price for ruling another nation by the force of the sword. My Israel, built on the founding values of humanism, pluralism and democracy is being lost.

Three months ago an unprecedented petition by reserve soldiers was published in the Israeli press. The signatories declared their intention to refuse to serve the Israeli occupation and disobey any order to go, as soldiers, beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines. The number of signatories (known as ‘seruvniks’ for the Hebrew word ‘seruv’ - refusal) has increased rapidly from 50 in the first petition to 462 as of today. Though refusal in Israel was not uncommon, the scale of this petition is a novelty. Most of the signatories are hardened combat officers and soldiers, and all of them served many years in the occupied territories. Since the launch of the petition, about forty of those who have endorsed the petition have been sent to military prisons as a result of their refusal.

Almost all of the 462 who have signed, among them myself, are between twenty-five and thirty-five years old. None of us can remember a non-occupying Israel. Each and every signatory of the petition has individually reached the decision to spurn the state’s demand that they will employ immoral and inhumane means of control over civilian population. And yet, I was amazed to discover how similar our stories are. How identical our personal transitions from being “good” and obedient soldiers to what our Attorney General described as “dangerous outlaws” have been.

As the legal adviser to many seruvniks - and someone who was incarcerated for three weeks for refusing to serve in the Hebron area a few years ago - I have had the privilege of escorting many of my fellow signatories from receipt of their call up papers, through the trial and, finally, visiting them in prison. Given their biographies, the act of refusal was by no means a natural decision. Rather, it was rather the product of a personal crisis, born out of moral agonies and a sense of deep concern for our country’s future.

One might expect to hear horrifying stories of atrocities that the objectors witnessed before making their decision to no longer take part in the system. The truth of the matter is that most of the conscientious objectors reached their decision simply from experiencing “everyday” life in the occupied territories.

The occupation corrupted Israeli culture, it eroded our code of ethics, and it even contaminated the Hebrew language. In the name of the fight against the murderous and unforgivable terror that struck Israeli cities and towns, we grew accustomed to manning check-points in which thousands of Palestinians are being detained for hours and humiliated by young soldiers. We grew accustomed to pointing our rifles at children and women. We became tolerant to large-scale demolition of houses (‘surface uncovering’ in military jargon). Finally, we accepted a state-sponsored policy of assassinations, neatly labeled by Israeli spokesmen as “focused prevention”. We learned how to distinguish between roads for settlers (Jews) and roads for ‘locals’ (Palestinians), and we were asked to implement discriminatory laws for the sake of the illegal settlements that have trapped our country in an endless messianic war. A war which the vast majority of Israelis never wanted.

As soldiers who witnessed, first-hand, the corrosive effect of the occupation on ordinary Israelis and Palestinians we could no longer bear its destructive implications for what we were raised to believe were Israeli values - respect for human life and dignity. The occupation chiseled out unequal relations between Palestinians and Israelis. It planted in many a seed of racism against Arabs.

Under such circumstances, hundreds of officers and soldiers who were always in the forefront of IDF’s most prestigious units, who were used to risking their lives for the security of the State of Israel, began questioning both the morality of our presence in the occupied territories and the myth of its necessity. People who have no legal background grew to acknowledge that the command that sends them beyond the borders of democracy to rule another people inherently produces systematic human rights abuses and is therefore neither democratic nor legal.

Entering a village and arresting every male above the age of 14 for up to 18 days, as was done in the recent incursion to the West Bank, is inhuman, even if the mission is to find terrorists. Stopping an ambulance that carries a sick man or a pregnant woman is immoral even if you suspect that it also carries hidden weapons. And that is the tragedy of serving in the occupied territories: one cannot go there without detaining suspected ambulances and treating children in a manner that results in more hatred. The soldiers are placed in an impossible situation, coerced by the occupation’s reality to act immorally.

As a lawyer I am allowed to visit these prisoners of conscience. Some arrive in prison filled with pride. Others are shocked by their own deed, and try to explain themselves to their families and friends in long telephone conversations. In prison, most of them discover how angry they are. Angry at the settlers that tangled us in a never-ending war. Indignant at the governments of Israel that enabled them to do so. Vexed at the Israeli Defense Force, which arrogantly took for granted that we would carry out any order.

The seruvniks come from the backbone of Israeli society. They were always seen by themselves and by others, as Israelis from the mainstream of our civic life. “I took seriously the values I was brought up on in this country”, they tell me. We must now ask ourselves whether this was always simply rhetoric, or whether Israel has fundamentally changed. As seruvniks, we have chosen to speak out. To silence our voice would be to marginalize further the basic values upon which our country was founded.

Read the seruvniks’ petition - Courage to refuse - at www.seruv.org.il. Reach the author at legal@seruv.org.il.

Michael Sfard, a lawyer practicing human rights and criminal law in Tel-Aviv, is also a co-signer of the Courage to Refuse letter in which 467 (as of 6/17/02) officers and soldiers declared that they will no longer agree to serve in the occupied territories.

From Sunday May 19, 2002
The Observer (Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002) www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4416046,00.html

While United Nations inspectors could not get in... While the world’s accredited journalists were barred... Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Peacemaking Delegation did enter and inspect the devastated Jenin refugee camp.

F.O.R. Delegation enters Jenin Refugee Camp: reports on devastation and deaths
(submitted by Indira Clark)

While authorities were barring journalists and United Nations investigators, the FOR delegation in the Middle East managed to enter Jenin, inspect it, interview survivors, and prepare to make an objective and compassionate report to the world.

The precise process through which the team gained access is not being published here, to avoid possible embarrassment or danger to those who cooperated with FOR on the matter.

Emily Rosenberg and Scott Kennedy, co-leaders of our delegation, reported, “Nobody was prepared for what we saw.” They described an area of three blocks by six blocks of total destruction. Mountains of rubble, parts of houses, clothes, shoes, pieces of paper, housewares, furniture, a crib, and a wheelchair of a disabled man who’d been killed in the shelling, filled this area of about 18 square blocks.

The team’s observations tended to confirm the Mayor’s report that over 150 homes were totally destroyed, another 100 so damaged that rebuilding is the only option, and 500 more suffering significant damage.

Some of the vast damage in this part of the city was from shelling and rocket attacks, but most was from bulldozers. At one point the delegation walked along a flattened pathway, packed fairly hard but with wire and pipes sticking up from it. They said they were horrified to learn that this was not remains of a street, but that they were walking on the crushed remains of what had once been homes.

A particularly heartbreaking report was given to the delegation by an American volunteer working in the community. He told of a family in Jenin that had taken into their home a half dozen persons wounded in the shelling and rocket-fire.

And then came the bulldozers. They frantically tried to wave off the bulldozers and explain. Their cries were ignored, and their house demolished on top of the wounded. It also appeared that bulldozers had deliberately been used to break the surface asphalt of streets and rupture sewer and water pipes below.

Collective Punishment

Our delegation members were clear that such destruction went beyond incidental damage in a hunt for terrorists, and into the area of collective punishment, i.e. harming an entire community to punish for what are believed to be the criminal acts of some within it.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, somewhat similar patterns of apparent destruction for its own sake were observed. The delegation was told that in Ramallah the offices of several human rights groups were ransacked, with computers destroyed, furniture smashed, files strewn about, and sinks and toilets destroyed by single bullets. The destruction seemed destined to root out Palestinian civil society.

What the delegation saw did not at all match the report that Secretary of State Colin Powell had described the destruction in Jenin as “minimal but justified amount of civilian damage.” Six of the FOR delegation were from California, and were particularly appalled to hear that their Senator, Dianne Feinstein, had spoken of “minimal collateral damage” in Jenin. It was not possible to report with accuracy how many deaths occurred in Jenin. Israeli officials had estimated nine civilian deaths. Palestinians spoke of as many as 600. Families were still digging in the rubble, sometimes aided by three bulldozers, searching for the remains of missing loved ones.

Jenin originally had a population of between 12,000 and 15,000, most of them refugees from 58 villages that had been destroyed in 1948. At one point delegation members enthusiastically pitched in to help unload 1500 large cartons of relief supplies that had been brought to Jenin in twenty trucks by other concerned organizations. The people watching this expressed warm gratitude. But they said they were even more grateful that people were witnessing what had happened and promised to tell of it throughout the United States.

Another Side

Of course, there’s another side to the scene. There always is. And FOR delegations strive to be balanced and objective, in what they observe, in what they report, and in the empathetic support they extend to those who suffer. It’s rarely easy.

But the day before entering Jenin, the FOR delegation met with Israelis who had lost loved ones to Palestinian suicide bombers and other practitioners of violence. In particular, they will long remember conversations in Jerusalem with Rami Elhanan, whose 14 year old daughter had been killed by a suicide bomber while walking with friends on a pedestrian mall.

Such wanton killing so often terrorizes the most innocent of all.

That girl’s grandfather had been an early advocate of a two state solution, and one of the first Israelis to meet with Yasser Arafat, at a time when it was illegal to do so. Even at the time of their daughter’s death, Rami’s wife issued a statement: “The enemy is the war — making politicians who do not have the political will to achieve a settlement.”

Rami Elhanan, himself, is speaking to schools and organizations throughout Israel. He sees the essential choice as submitting to bitterness and hatred, or finding the strength to persuade people that the circle of violence must be broken. As a key component of this, he sees the occupation of Palestinian land as “like a cancer in Israeli society. It must be removed.”

In its overseas delegations, and in its ongoing peacemaking witness in our own land, the FOR seeks to find, nurture, and encourage such voices. And they are there, however much the mass media seems not to notice.

FOR has also communicated with the Palestinian Authority, expressing understanding of the suffering of their people but rigorously condemning the suicide bombers and other violence.

Scott Kennedy, Chair of the FOR and co-leader of the Middle East delegation, termed Jenin, “a devastating but perhaps fitting conclusion to our delegation. Jenin highlighted the great human cost of not finding a political resolution of the Israeli — Palestinian conflict. It showed the horrors of war and suggests the long-term effects of the conflict continuing. Responses by U.S. officials have shown how very out of touch they are with what is going on, and how much work we have to do on our return.”

(reprinted with permission)

ACTION: Contact The Fellowship of Reconciliation, P.O. Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960; (845) 358-4601; Fax:(845) 358-4924. Email: for@forusa.org; www.forusa.org/

(Ed. Note: Scott Kennedy is a co-founder of the Santa Cruz Resource Center for Nonviolence (www.rcnv.org/), former mayor of Santa Cruz, and a current city council member.)

Alternative Jewish voices

By JOE TORNBERG

There is a growing voice that is slowly being heard in the popular media of Jewish people in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere who seek a peaceful end to the occupation. These people have developed coalitions with Palestinian and other Middle Eastern groups as well as other people from around the world. They believe the continuing violence creates victims on both sides and also hurts the image of Israel and Jewish people everywhere. They also believe the only way to end the violence is through peace.

The Internet has dozens of links to Jewish groups in the U.S. and Israel that want to see equality and justice of all who live in Israel so that peace can prevail. An excellent site with many links to other organizations is Jewish Voice for Peace, www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org Another is The Alliance for Israeli and Palestinian Reconciliation, www.bayareaalliance.net . Both groups are located in the Bay Area to provide a local perspective on the issues. Two other Jewish  sites are Americans for Peace Now, www.peacenow.org  and Jewish Unity for a Just Peace, www.junity.org .

Two notable groups in Israel are strongly urging their government to end the occupation: the prominent Gush Shalom, www.gush-shalom.org , and the less well-known Women for Peace, www.coalitionofwomen4peace.org