Like anyone else, Palestinians also have ideas about how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although, at this point in the struggle, their views are more attuned to the realities of occupation/colonization, and what happens daily on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. These solutions go beyond the now almost hackneyed notion of two states. What reasonable person doesn’t support two states? That’s not the issue. The issue is how to get Israel to buy into the realization that until there are two states, Israel and Palestine, both sovereign entities, not Bantustans surrounded by walls and military forces, there will never be peace in the region. So what is it that the people on the street see as a first step to attaining peace?
Gaza's Father Manuel, Father Manuel Musallem, that is, runs a school in Gaza City where he is the head of the Christian Affairs Department for the Palestinian Authority. He was born in Birzeit near Ramallah and lived his entire childhood in the West Bank of Palestine, which was under the control of Transjordan prior to 1967. Because Father Manuel happened to be on the East Bank of the Jordan River training to be a Roman Catholic priest when Israel conquered the West Bank in June 1967, he became a refugee. Although it took him three years to return to Palestine, in 1970 he was able to get a one year permit to get home, and then ever since, has had to submit paperwork every six months through the Vatican to the Israeli authorities to extend his temporary residency.
Father Manuel was interviewed in Gaza City by Dr. Bill Dienst, a Washington state physician and frequent traveler to the Palestinian authorities, in November 2006.
Bill Dienst: I asked him about the obsessive fear and hype over "terrorism" that is so prevalent in Israeli and American culture today.
Father Manuel: Fear is the punishment the Israelis and Americans must pay for their crime of oppression.
Bill Dienst: I asked about three possible futures for Israel-Palestine: 1) More Apartheid, 2) a two-state solution, and 3) A democratic and secular state of Israel and Palestine.
Father Manuel was emphatic in supporting a fourth solution:
Father Manuel: The world, the US, the UN, the EU, the Arab League, and the Palestinian Authority, and all people of faith who believe in peace through justice must all work together to impose a fair solution. The government of Israel is currently a spoiled brat that is totally out of control, and must be taken to task.
Otherwise, Israel will continue oppressing Palestinians indefinitely, unless it suffers direct economic consequences from these world entities, which prop it up financially; if nothing happens to change this path, things will continue to get worse.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged Palestinian city of El-Bireh in the West Bank. He co-edited with Staughton and Alice Lynd, HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994).
In a story posted at the Electronic Intifada, The IDF and my daughter's hamburger, Sam Bahour described the effect of a recent experience with his daughters at Angelo's Pizzeria, which is on the main street in Ramallah. His daughter Nadine ordered a hamburger. While in the restaurant, the IDF entered the area and shooting occurred. AlJazeera later reported that an undercover Israeli hit team tried to arrest someone and were exposed and came under Palestinian fire. They called in reinforcements. Four Palestinian civilians were killed in the attack, 20 were injured, five of them seriously.
In his account of his daughters’ experiences in Angelo’s Pizzeria, Sam Bahour wrote: "My friends, I write this not to bore you with one family's experience during two hours of occupation, but rather to scream to the world that we need your help!"
Israel has lost her way and the US is Palestinian-blind. Israel is creating yet another generation of Palestinians that are more numb to their military occupation than any other. Likewise, it is creating a generation of Israeli occupiers that see my city as the wild, wild west. It is stripping children, Palestinian and Israeli, of their childhoods. It must stop and NOW. We need your active support:
· Organize locally, at your church, community center, union, etc.
· Support Jimmy Carter's stance against Israeli Apartheid. Read his book.
· Write letters.
· Visit and engage your representatives. Demand public statements.
· Sponsor a Palestinian student.
· Invest in Palestine.
These are the solutions of just two people living under military occupation on the ground in Palestine. There is nothing here about two states. There is a lot here about fear, oppression, and death that people experience every day living in the West Bank and Gaza, who see no end in sight. They are appeals to the outside world, to us.
Crossposted at Eternal Hope: http://eternalhope.blog-city.com/