c. 1996 Religion News Service
JERUSALEM _ As gun battles raged between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers around a tiny Jewish enclave in the West Bank Arab city of Nablus Sept. 26, Sameh Kenaan, a Palestinian security official, evacuated a wounded Jewish soldier, and then helped stop the shooting by positioning police under his command between Palestinian protesters and a group of beseiged Israeli soldiers.
For many in this embattled land, Kenaan’s daring rescue of a wounded Jewish soldier by an Arab security commander _ captured in television footage _ was one of the few signs of humanity amidst an otherwise grim picture of violence that has swept the region over the past two weeks.
But a group of Israelis and Palestinians, who know Kenaan personally as a member of a small Arab-Jewish dialogue group that has been meeting for four years in Nablus, say his intervention is a prime example of the positive results made possible by regular communication between the two sides. “Kenaan’s act was an example of dialogue in real time,”says Palestinian Professor Sammy Kilani, also a member of the Nablus-based dialogue group.”He worked to calm the situation and he evacuated the wounded.” All across the West Bank and Israel, the recent riots have placed new obstacles in the way of grassroots Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and cooperation efforts that had only just begun to flourish as a result of the 1993 Oslo peace process. But paradoxically, the violence has also given these small human initiatives new purpose and meaning. “I think that dialogue is the only way open now between us and the Israelis. If there had been no dialogue in Nablus, I think there would have been a much bigger catastrophe,”says Kenaan, referring to the way in which contacts and mediation between himself and Israeli commanders helped avert a major Israeli army incursion into the city, which saw some of the heaviest fighting during the recent disturbances.
At a time when Israeli and Palestinian official institutions have become estranged and embittered, the non-official channels that have been nurtured by a variety of ad-hoc Israeli-Palestinian groups may be one of the best hopes the peace process has _ at least until political conditions change.
Those groups today range from overtly political organizations that have brought together left-wing Israelis and Palestinians in political demonstrations to newer and more exotic joint undertakings in environmental protection, Jewish-Muslim religious study, or even personal growth techniques like transcendental meditation.
In the traditional political arena, the violence has prompted dovish Israeli groups like Peace Now to initiate meetings and demonstrations with Palestinian and Israeli-Arab counterparts against the hardline government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just last Saturday (Oct.5), a Peace Now contingent of Israeli writers and intellectuals visited the West Bank city of Hebron to meet Palestinians and underline their support for a long-delayed Israeli withdrawal from the city. “Despite the difficulties in meeting, I think there are actually more opportunities now for cooperation between the Israeli left and Palestinians,”observes Ghassan Andoni, a Palestinian political activist from the town of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem.
He explains that under the previous government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Palestinians were simmering with frustration over the slow pace of the peace process, but many leading Israeli doves felt compelled to back Peres, who was running for re-election and under fire from the Israeli right. “Nowadays, however, there is more common ground as both sides suspect the intentions of the Netanyahu government,”he says wryly.”You can say there is a common enemy.” Just as significant to the peace process, however, are a number of less overtly political cooperation projects that have been developed in fields ranging from environmental study to religious thought.
Gideon Bromberg, secretary general of Eco Peace, an umbrella organization of 200 Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian environmental groups, says that even Israeli and Palestinian government officials have begun turning to his group for help as cooperation through the usual channels stalls. “We are now being approached by both Palestinians and Israelis to help move along issues like river cleanup and rabies control where both sides are affected, because on the government side things have come to a standstill,”says Bromberg.
Contrary to expectations, ties between the Jordanian, Egyptian and Israeli environmentalists have remained strong, says Bromberg, even as the Egyptian and Jordanian press assume increasingly anti-Israeli positions. “When riots were going on about 200 yards from my office in (Arab) east Jerusalem, I got a call from a Jordanian colleague who said, `What are you doing there? Get the hell out,'”recalls Bromberg, who is Jewish.
And Eco Peace is planning a meeting of its secretariat in Cairo next week, even though Egyptian members of the organization have been condemned in the Egyptian press for working with Israelis.
Nonetheless, the recent violence has certainly thrown up new obstacles to cooperation.
In particular, the difficulties of negotiating army roadblocks between the West Bank and Israel and between Palestinian and Israeli-controlled West Bank zones _ has impeded simple physical contact between Arabs, Jews and even tourists. Thus the logistics of any joint project or meeting have become vastly more complicated.
Palestinians and Israelis, who had planned to hold joint study sessions on religious dimensions of the Jewish-Muslim dispute over Hebron last week during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, canceled their plans for a”peace sukkah,”or peace tent, in the divided city after violence broke out that impeded Jews from entering the town.
In Nablus, an Israeli-Palestinian workshop on relaxation, meditation and the”transformation of suffering and pain”was due to proceed this week _ but without Jewish participants because the town remained under an Israeli army closure.”We are split between what we are living daily _ the soldiers and the bullets _ and our ambitions to work for a peaceful future,”observes Kilani, reflecting on how a workshop on mediation and relaxation can take place in the middle of a virtual seige. “Sometimes you feel what you are doing is just a drop in the sea, and are useless in front of other huge forces. You need a really deep wisdom to understand that you are working for the future.” (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS)
In the Bethlehem area, a group of American Mennonite students participating in a new Israeli-Palestinian alternative tourism project went ahead with a planned two-week stay with Palestinian families under curfew. But they had to take side roads to dodge army roadblocks to get into Jerusalem to hear lectures on Israeli society and attend synagogue for Simchat Torah holiday observances that concluded the Jewish High Holy Days period.
Meanwhile, the students say that their first-hand experiences living under curfew with Palestinian families triggered immense anger against the Israelis, despite their attempts to maintain a balanced perspective. “The first night we arrived, our host family wanted to get an extra bed for us from a neighbor’s house, and the Israeli soldiers wouldn’t let them carry it across the street,”recalls Andrea Stoner, a student with the group.”The soldiers finally agreed to let a group of students carry the bed because we were Americans. But I guess experiences like that made it very hard for me to be open to understanding the Israeli side.” Still, in most cases, those Palestinians and Israelis who have become accustomed to negotiating roadblocks, army patrols and political obstacles to meet each other seem determined to keep on trying.
When Ben Mollov, a lecturer at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, a religious Jewish institution, contacted a West Bank colleague, Ayman Ismail, about whether to proceed with a planned Oct. 25 dialogue and study session for religiously observant Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims, he found the Palestinian more than willing. “I wasn’t sure it would happen,”says Mollov, who also lives in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat.”But when I spoke to Ayman he told me that he would like to meet. He said that the peace we aspire to create is different than that of the leaders.”
MJP END FLETCHER
