Dear Chevra [Friends],
Many of us have been wanting an independent account of what happened in
Jenin, coming from someone we trust as not only caring about Palestinians but
also caring about and committed to real live Jews and real live Torah and a
real live Jewish society in Israel.
So I was grateful for and you may be interested in this account from Jenin
by Rabbi Arik Ascherman, received day before yesterday. Arik is a Rabbi,
born in America, who chose to make aliyah precisely because he was and is a
Zionist, committed to creating a Jewish society and culture in the Land of
Israel. He is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights. He lives
in Israel, is married to a Rabbi (the first Israeli-born woman to become a
Conservative rabbi). They have a child who is just a couple of weeks old.
Arik has a very powerful stake in NOT having bombs set off by terrorists. His
account follows.
After his account, I apppend some thoughts of my own about what makes sense
for us to do.
-- Shalom, Arthur Waskow.
"Will You Sweep Away The Inocent Aong With The Guilty?"
by Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Yesterday (Thursday) I made one of the most awful (and frightening) trips
of my life - to Jenin. I had heard from Palestinian friends about the
hatred there - towards Israelis, Americans, Arab countries and Europeans,
and how the only word spoken there (unlike other Palestinian towns) was
"revenge." Like everybody else I had seen the pictures. Nevertheless, it
was something else to be there.
The destroyed area is not that big, but it is simply incredible. The area
was not merely reduced to rubble - it was reduced to dust. With all that I
saw, two conversations affected me most. I spoke with one elderly women
sitting in the dirt next to the mangled wheelchair of her son. They had just
dug it out and now she was waiting for them to find her son as well. She
explained how she had begged the soldiers to give her handicapped son, who
she had washed, fed and clothed for so many years, a chance to get out. She
says that they didn't listen. A crowd of onlookers stood around the
excavation - the deathwatch.
The other conversation was with a man lying in a makeshift sukkah (tabernacle)
over what had once been part of his home. He had assumed that his two sons
were dead, but found out the previous day that they were "only" imprisoned.
One he had already managed to speak with or get some concrete information
about. I spoke with HaMoked(Sister human rights organization which is trying
to keep track of prisoners) today to confirm the location of the second and
pass that info back to him.
Of course, I had to explain to the worker from HaMoked, that I had only been
known yesterday as somebody accompanying the French televison crew who had
wanted to go in with me. It is not a good idea to let anybody know that you
are Israeli if you want to leave in one piece. (Our Palestinian driver was
getting really nervous at some points - such as when one resident was sure
that he had seen me on TV. Everybody was suspicious, sometimes asking our
driver if we were Jews, why we were asking questions, etc.)
I could write about all the stories of people being used as human shields,
shot at, walking into homes which soldiers had lived in and trashed,etc.
However, most of you will have either already heard these things or don't
want to hear.
What Happened? I don't pretend to be a military expert. I can't look at a
piece of concrete and tell you how it fell. However, what I was told and
which rings true is that the IDF called on everybody to leave their homes.
Many did so. However, others were afraid of the soldiers (Nobody said this,
but I won't discount the possibility that the fighters holed up didn't let
people leave.) Afterwards, the IDF launched a massive bombardment from the
air, brought in bulldozers,etc.
This was not a massacre, in the sense that the IDF did not come in and
intentionally target civilians. However, at a certain point, the preservation of
civillian life was no longer a big concern. Clearly the IDF knew that they were
bringing buildings down on civilians. There was a decision to make - Do you kill
civillians along with the armed resistance or do you either let them go or
surround the area as was done in Ramallah and Bethlehem or go in from house to
house and risk soldiers?
Tractate Sanhedrin teaches us that we can not harm innocent people, even in
the name of our own defense. However, how did we get to the point that we
are debating this? What turned fervent Palestinian supporters of the peace
process to supporters of terrorism?
Sadly, we have been manuvered as a society (with a fair amount of help from
Palestinian extremists) into a situation where we do have real defense needs
(140 Israelis killed in the month of March culminating in the mass murder
which took place on Passover eve) and the question has become "What is moral
when we have no choice to defend ourselves," as opposed to "What can we do
to create a win - win situation?"
I saw the terrorist infrastructure yesterday - the hatred in the eyes of an
entire people who want to be free from occupation, even as we want to be
free of fear. I was present as a truckload from USAID arrived and was being
downloaded. An hour later I was told that camp residents had come with
missile parts in their hands saying, "This is the real Amercian gift," and
demanded that the aid be returned.
Clearly, for the people in Jenin camp, we in the human rights community and
the government are two hands of the same body - good cop/bad cop. We come
and wring our hands and send aid afterwards, but did not/were not able to do
anything to stop what happened. We can point fingers at the other side and
comfort oursleves by saying that we must respond to this hatred, as sorry as
we may be.
However, I hope that we as a society will also have the abillity to ask the
more difficult question of our contribution to creating the hatred. As a
human rights community we must figure out what we do in the impossible
situation when nobody is listening, channels of influence are closed, the
facts aren't clear and some of us ourselves are confused.
Shabbat is approaching and perhaps I will add something when I translate
this to Hebrew on Sunday. I don't feel that I have even scratched the
surface. I can understand the dilemmas about sending soldiers into booby
trapped houses, the need to protect ourselves from being blown up, etc.
Some of our members had loved ones fighting there who are good, moral
people.
On the other hand, all attempts to describe, explain, debate fade away
when you are standing in Jenin. It is clear that something happened there
that was terribly wrong. Nobody can stand amidst the destruction and
with any shred of honesty say "This was justified." All that fills one's mind is,
"WHAT HAVE WE WROUGHT?"
Shabbat Shalom,
Arik
Postscript:
Over Shabbat I reflected on how Abraham argued with God on behalf of
Sodom and Gemorrah. Terribly evil people lived there, but Abraham challenged
God - "Will the innocent be destroyed along with the guilty?" (Genesis 18:13)
We know that God was willing to spare the entire cities if 10 righteous people
were found. When ten were not found, Lot's family was led to safety. The
army apparently did call residents to safety, but was not willing to spare the
civillians who remained (Israelis say seven have been found so far. Palestinians
say more. It is reasonable to assume that the number will reach 10.) Some
argue that all Palestinians are guilty by association, and therefore civilians can
not be considered innocent. Others no doubt will argue that the army fulfilled
its obligation after calling on people to leave.
I believe that the lesson of Genesis, Tractate Sanhedrin, and the IDF's vaunted
"Purity of Arms" is that, even with the price to be paid should terrorists have
been allowed to escape, the moral act would have been not to rain down fire
and brimstone on civillians.
I wonder, "Where was Abraham when the decision was made?" Was there even
one person along the chain of command who argued, "Will the innocent be
destroyed along with the guilty?" We may never know. If there was, nobody
listened..
"Abraham's"are hard to come by these days.
Rabbis For Human Rights
Tel. 972 2 563-7731
Fax. 972 2 566-2815
Mobile 972 50607034
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: rhr.israel.net
******************************************
My own comment [Arthur Waskow]:
It seems very probable, not only from Arik but from many other sources,
that there was no "massacre" in Jenin in the sense of lining civilians up and
shooting them down. But it also seems probable, not only from Arik but from
independent reports like the news stories of the Haaretz reporter Amira Hass,
that "terrible things" were carried out by some Israeli soldiers, sometimes
on their own, sometimes in units, sometimes under orders from above.
We cannot possibly know for sure what actually happened without an
independent investigation. I understand the Israeli govt's dislike of the United
Nations, but in fact the UN has until the last year been more and more friendly
toward Israel, Kofi Annan has not exhibited hostility to Israel, and the recent
critiicism by him and others at the UN has not targeted Israel as a state or
Zionism as a movement, but particular actions of the Israeli govt.
So it seems to me the demand for a UN investigatory commission makes sense.
More basically, there is the question of how to protect human rights BEFORE
such events as the Jenin invasion and the Pesach Seder bombing, rather than
waiting till afterward to find out whether they have been violated.
For this purpose, an international force to protect BOTH Israelis and
Palestinians from each other seems to me a crucial necessity. Troops could
come from countries friendly to Israel like the US, Canada, Australia, etc,
and from such countries as Jordan and Egypt that are friendly to the
Palestinians and have peace treaties with Israel.
I think creating such a force ought to go along with creating a Special
International Criminal Court for the Middle East, which could order those
credibly accused of terrorism and of war crimes held for trial, and then try
them. If these two institutions could become effective, the fear and rage
that now possesses both peoples could be cooled.
The third leg of a peace effort must be convening a regional peace conference
to turn something like the Saudi proposals into reality. For it will take the
practical vision of a decent achievable future to attract both peoples to
turn toward peace.
All three efforts require US action. And that requires action by American
citizens.
Shalom, Arthur
_______________________________
The decision to forward these comments flows from the work of The Shalom
Center www.shalomctr.com , a North American network committed to draw on
Jewish wisdom, old and new, in order to pursue peace, justice, and the healing
of the earth. It is a division of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, but these
thoughts do not necessarily reflect those of ALEPH as a whole.
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