Much Needed Inspiration

As the conflict in Israel/Palestine drags on, optimism is becoming a real commodity. With a right-wing coalition likely to take over in Israel and a Palestinian unity government looking unlikely and problematic, it just does not seem like peace is coming soon. Most likely, we can look forward to more violent conflicts, which will invariably leave many people dead or injured, infrastructure damaged, and hateful ideologies hardened on both sides of the border.

It's hard to stay hopeful in times like this. That's why stories like Elik Elhanan's are so incredibly important to Israelis and Palestinians who want to move forward and live enjoyable lives. This is one of the most inspirational stories that I have seen in a while.

Turning Rage Into Reconciliation In Israel

I was born and raised in Jerusalem. I had a normal, happy childhood. I came from a liberal, left-wing family, which means I knew something of the situation. I was for peace, but I never saw myself as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My life and dreams were very far away from all that. The reality of Israeli life helped a lot. Even though I grew up in Jerusalem, the biggest Israeli-Palestinian city, I never met with Palestinians and never talked to them. As far as I was concerned, we lived in different worlds.
When I was 18, I joined the army. It was mandatory, but I went gladly. I believed it was my civic duty. I believed one should contribute oneself to one's community. I believed I was going to protect the borders of my country and defend its citizens. But even there I couldn't see myself as part of it all. Again, my dreams lay very far away, and I knew this soldier thing would end one day. But a piece of reality burst my bubble.
I got the news that there had been a bombing while I was training for something or other far from home. My sister Smadar was missing. I remember the long ride home, hoping for the best. But the second I saw my parents, I knew. They had just come back from the morgue where they'd identified the body of my sister.
Smadar died on September 4, 1997. On that day, two Palestinians blew themselves up in the centre of Jerusalem, killing eight and wounding another 50. Smadar was 14 years old. She had gone downtown with some friends to buy things for school. My sister and her friends had the misfortune of being close to one of the bombers. She died instantly, as did her best friend. The third friend was critically injured.
When we're confronted with such a situation, the first question is, of course, How do I go on? How do I deal with the pain? Society offers several solutions to this problem. One is to be sad. Another is to be angry. I refused to take either path.
Life is too precious to be wasted in sombre reminiscence. I thought my sister, who was full of life and love, deserved better than to be remembered in such a sad fashion. I understood that the first victim of my anger would be me. It's easy to succumb to anger, hate and fear, especially when we're hurt by a faceless menace such as terrorism. You can't hate someone so you hate something--not a Palestinian, but the Palestinians, all of them.
But this prospect of living my life as someone who fears everything and hates everyone was unacceptable. The possibility of revenge didn't give me any peace either. Who would be the object of my revenge? Would it make me feel any better? The man who killed my sister was dead.
What was missing from my life was Smadar, my sister, not honour or satisfaction. It didn't matter how many Palestinians would die; she'd never come back. Because of my pain, should more lives be ruined? I decided I couldn't allow it.
What had happened to me was beyond repair. In trying to "fix" it, I'd only destroy myself. My sister didn't die so Israel would be safe; she didn't die because Arabs are naturally bad or because Islam is an evil religion. She died because of a political situation, man-made and solvable.
The events of our time show us there's no violent solution to violence. If you want people to stop trying to kill you and themselves, give them a reason to live. I became aware of the contaminating nature of violence, of its incapacity to generate anything but more violence.
If we really want to stop the violence, to make sure no more innocent lives are lost, we must struggle for a peace agreement. I work for peace in many ways, but the most significant one in my eyes is through the Israeli-Palestinian Families' Forum, a group of 500 families--250 from Israel and 250 from Palestine--that have lost a family member in this conflict. Through this group that I co-founded I've met Palestinians, real ones, not stereotypes or caricatures, but real people like Ali Abu Awwad, who spent four years in Israeli jails. He was shot by a settler, his brother murdered by a soldier. Nevertheless, Ali still wants peace. There are many others like him.
If I can talk to these people, many of them former members of Palestinian resistance movements like the one that killed my sister, and if they can talk to me after losing their family members, no one has a reason not to communicate.
We want to show people in pain that there's another way to deal with it, through hope rather than hate. In our group, we know peace will only be achieved with dialogue. We know it's imperative that each side knows the story, the suffering and the hopes of the other side. If we can speak to each other, anyone can!
Elik Elhanan is co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian Families' Forum, known as Bereaved Parents for Peace. This is excerpted from a speech published in Occupation Magazine (kibush.co.il).

The Stace of the U.S. toward China

In recent weeks, I have been watching the oscillation of the United States’ stance toward China. When Clinton first visited the country, she publicly relayed that the United States would place the issue of the economic crises above all others; she spoke of the importance of China and the United States uniting to improve the economic situation. In doing this, she neglected to condemn—or even “slap the wrist” of—China of their numerous human rights violations. Then, shortly after her return, she signed off on the State Department Report that harshly criticized the human rights situation in China:

“The [Chinese] government continued to limit citizens' privacy rights and tightly controlled freedom of speech, the press (including the Internet), assembly, movement, and association. Authorities committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions of prisoners, and used forced labor. In addition, the Chinese government increased detention and harassment of dissidents, petitioners, human rights defenders, and defense lawyers. Local and international NGOs continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. China's human rights record worsened in some areas, including severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Tibet."

My concern is that it remains unclear what position this administration plans on taking in respect to human rights. From what we have seen thus far, many things could be concluded. In my opinion, it seems most likely that the stace the United States will take is one that is harsh, condemning human rights violations abroad, only when it is convenient for our own goals. This does not mean that the new administration is making the wrong choice; in fact, upon reflection, I do not know what the right choice should be.

On the one hand, I want the United States to place propagating human rights as a priority that does not come second to economics. I care about the Tibetans and Chinese that are being denied rights while other countries watch and do little to protect them. On the other hand, I know this is naive. I know that we are in the middle of serious times, and everyone’s top priority is moving forward. In times of drowning, values become second to staying above water. And in the end, I don’t know if that is okay or not. The United States would argue that we will only be able to effectively protect human rights when the economy returns to normal, so it is only logical that protecting the economy is our primary concern. Yet, no matter the reasons, it is rational to question if the administration truly understands the importance of human rights if anything is allowed to come before them.

Secondly, I have doubts about the United States playing a moral judge when we are violating many of the rights that we have condemned the Chinese for violating. This was the at the heart of the Chinese's response to our report—don’t criticize us for violating many of the same human rights you are. I have a great deal of sympathy for this reaction. In the end, I think the United States needs to decide how human rights will fit in the agenda during this crisis. Primarily, I hope we take China’s criticism to heart and terminate all of our human rights violations (for instance, closing our secret detention centers that deny people the right of habeas corpus and use torture and coercive techniques to gain information). Secondly, I hope we can find a way to support the termination of human rights violations abroad as we work to improve the economy.

Upcoming Human Rights Events

For Human Rights enthusiasts, here are three events coming up that might interest you:

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 11th of Febuary, Efraim Inbar will be speaking at the Athenaeum. He is the author of five books titled, Outcast Countries in the World Community (1985), War and Peace in Israeli Politics. Labor Party Positions on National Security (1991), Rabin and Israel’s National Security (1999), The Israeli-Turkish Entente (2001), and Israel's National Security: Issues and Challenges since the Yom Kippur War. Currently, he serves on the Academic Committee of the History Department of the IDF and as the President of the Israel Association of International Studies. While at CMC, he will be having two discussions. The first will be at 4:00 Pm in the Freeburg Room and second will be over dinner at 6:00 PM in the Parents Dining Room. Both of his discussions will be oriented around the recent conflict in Gaza, where he will offer students his unique perspective.

Another exciting event will be taking place at Pomona on Tuesday the 17th of February. The event is titled Human Rights in the 21st Century, and it will feature a panel discussion of the genocide and ongoing humanitarian crises in Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo, and other nations. Additionally, the panel will discuss the future of human rights in an age characterized by globalization and the rise of China, India, and Russia. The speakers are Mark Hanis, executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, Jeanette Ndhlovu, South African Consul-General, and Michael J. Bazyler, acclaimed Holocaust and human rights scholar and professor at Chapman University Law School. The event will be at 8 PM in Edmunds Ballroom at Pomona College.

Finally, on Sunday the 22nd of February at The University of Southern California there will be a screening of a recently made documentary called Spell Your Name. The film features testimonies of Ukrainian Holocaust survivors and witnesses from the Shoah Foundation Insititute’s archives. Following the film, their will be a discussion addressing issues of cultural stereotypes and the complexity of the public memorialization of massacres that took place during the Holocaust in Ukraine. The discussion will be moderated by Wolf Gruner, a USC history professor, Sergey Bukovsky, the filmmaker, Crispin Brooks, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute curator, and Michael Renov, a USC cinematic arts professor. This really interesting event will be at the Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre at 4:30 pm. The admission is free and refreshments will be served.

The Hope for Change for Bagram

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11 (1): Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.


Guantanamo has long been the basis of debate for human rights activists. Yet recently, there is an air of relief as our new President has proclaimed that within a year, the prison will close. Though I share this relief, I am concerned with the fate of not only Guantanamo, but also the Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. As of now, Obama has yet to say much on his plans for this detention center. In a very limited time, he must decide if he wants to approve of the 60 million dollar prison complex that Bush proposed to replace the current one, and if he will give four prisoners in Bagram the ability to challenge their detention as has been done for prisoners in Guantanamo.

I am very concerned about these decisions. This detention center has been reported to have worse conditions for prisoners than Guantanamo, and as the Bush administration has allowed no reporters or human rights organizations inside, we can only image that to be true. These prisoners are being held without rights or the ability to question their charges for indefinite period of time. On top of this, with as little transparency into the prison as is currently allowed, one need not question deeply to imagine the conditions the guards have created for the prisoners. As we have learned from psychology, even good people are corrupted under unregulated power. All it takes is looking back on the Stanford Prison Experiment to see that it does not take evil people to do evil things. Situations are very powerful determinants of behavior. Yet if we know this, then why do we continue to put any people—regardless of their values—in situations where corruption is a foreseeable event. At Bagram in 2003, two men were “coercively interrogated” to death, and the prison was known for using many interrogation techniques that many consider to be torture on a regular basis. Though it is said that the prison has improved after 2003 due to intense public pressure, we must foresee similar events in the future, and decide that they are unacceptable. In my opinion, the only way to prevent their occurrences is make the prisons more transparent, where workers are held accountable by public censure, and more just, where prisoners are given the human rights that should never be denied to anyone.

We have seen the atrocities that have happened since 2001 in these secret detention camps, and the wise know that these atrocities will only continue without increased transparency. Yet, we have not put the pressure on our new president to ensure that these violations stop. It is not only in Guantanamo that they occur, it is all prisons where suspects are held secretly without habeas corpus, without trial, and with very minimal rights. President Obama has been given until February 20th the make a decision about the four prisoners seeking to question their detention in Bagram. I hope that he decides, as as was done for prisoners in Guantanamo, that the values that our country were built upon are never worth sacrificing.

The Effects of Aid in Zimbabwe

Over a month ago, I wrote on the massive turmoil in Zimbabwe. Yet even now, as we sit on the upward swing of the conflict with dual leadership hopefully on the horizon, I remain angry and broken hearted. Recent articles have been published about the ramifications of Mugabe’s rule. Their topics are extremely broad in scope, covering issues in health care, hunger, political angst and inflation. One that I found extremely egregious relates to the abuse that young women—or maybe I should say girls—are experiencing as they flee to South Africa in attempt to find work and send money home. Countless unreported rapes occur each day during this passage. As most of these women cross the border at night, they frequently stumble upon men that have predicted their arrival. They are robed and abused in exchange for passage. Furthermore, once the women arrive in South Africa, the only work that many are able to find is in prostitution.

I am sure that I am not alone in my vehement anger and sadness about Zimbabwe. I desperately want someone to blame for how out of control this situation has become. Clearly, Mugabe is the ultimate culprit, but what about us? Have we been incompetent in being unable to prevent such suffering? I have written about policies and their effects in previous blogs, and I am now interested in their role in Zimbabwe. Currently, NGOs, state aid and humanitarian organizations are vital to the survival of many Zimbabweans. In December of 2008, the United States and the United Nations were responsible for feeding half of the population of Zimbabwe. My first impression is sincere gratitude that these people are being helped. On the other hand, I wonder if in the attempt to help, people are in fact enabling Mugabe’s brutality to reign. As he can rely on others to feed his people, he feels no political or moral obligation to feed them himself. As his people do not need to fight for their own self-preservation, they are not forcing him out. The New York Times quoted an employee of an aid agency who reiterated this idea: "'You’re acting to save lives, knowing that by doing so you are sustaining this government,' said one aid agency manager, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. 'And unfortunately, ZANU-PF is good at exploiting this humanitarian imperative.'”

This issue I find to be extremely tough. My gut tells me that it would be incredibly wrong to act as Mugabe’s educators while watching his country implode. On the other hand, my mind tells me that it is potentially our willingness to clean up after him that enabled his power to be sustained for so long. In the end, I would rather be blameworthy for enabling Mugabe in attempt to relieve the suffering of his people than blameless at the expense of human life. Regardless, we will never be able to juxtapose and judge the outcomes of the two scenarios to get a clear response as to which one would have been best. This means that we are left with our imperfect, real-time responses.

For more recent news articles on Zimbabwe...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/world/africa/22zimbabwe.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123332129713033159.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/world/africa/31zimbabwe.html?ref=world
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/world/africa/24zimbabwe.html