|
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/chapel-hill-news/article71421847.html
Israeli delegates spark passionate response on visit to Chapel Hill By Tammy Grubb and Natalie Ritchie tgrubb@newsobserver.com nritchie@newsobserver.com CHAPEL HILL A Town Council member says she left a meeting with an Israeli delegation to Chapel Hill because she couldn’t take it anymore. “The council never voted on hosting this delegation, and I would hope in the future that it would be a council decision whether or not to invite and host an event,” Councilwoman Maria Palmer said. “I felt that I was about to be either rude or start crying, and I didn’t want to do either one.” Four members of the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, stopped Monday in Chapel Hill to learn how U.S. government works as part of an International Visitor Leadership Program tour. The U.S. State Department-sponsored tour also visited Washington, D.C., and New York City. Tour cities depend on the delegation and the visit’s theme, said Leila Bekri, director of International Visitor Leadership Programs at Raleigh-based International Focus. The national program office and the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs chose Chapel Hill, she said. The Israeli group first visited the UNC School of Media and Journalism, before joining a three-hour meeting with the Town Council and about a dozen area residents. The conversation was eye-opening but distressing for some, Mayor Pam Hemminger said. “While you may not agree with everything – or any or part – it’s always a good learning experience,” Hemminger said, “and it’s also a better opportunity to have change come when you bring people to the table and have the discussion rather than shutting them out.” The delegation – Amir Ohana and Sharren Haskel, Likud party members; Meirav Ben-Ari, with the Kulanu party, part of Likud’s coalition government; and Itzik Shmuli, part of the Zionist Union, a center-left political alliance – initially focused Monday on municipal governance. While some issues divide them, they said Israelis agree on many things that divide Americans, including LGBT rights and universal health care. Human rights Passions flared as residents challenged the visitors on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Local groups, Abrahamic Initiative on the Middle East and Jewish Voices for Peace, initially opposed the meeting “because we see it is a normalization and legitimization of policies in the Israeli government that are oppressive and violate human rights,” said John Heinemeier, a retired Durham pastor. The group’s party affiliations are irrelevant, said Miriam Thompson, of the Abrahamic Initiative. “Are they working in the Knesset to end occupation?” she asked. “If they don’t come out in opposition they might as well be part of Likud.” Israel’s government has offered “very generous proposals” for peace, Ohana said; the two-state solution is “no solution.” “In order to achieve peace we need to know that the other side both wants peace and has the political stability to maintain it,” he said. “When I look at the other side, I’m sorry to say I don’t see it.” Shmuli disagreed, saying most Israelis believe in a two-state solution. Israelis and Palestinians co-exist in settlements, finding “good friendship” and “true peace,” Haskel said. “Everywhere there’s Israeli construction, you see development of Palestinian lives as well,” Haskel said. The delegates stood united against the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement and allegations of apartheid. “When you see people from abroad using the word apartheid or calling for a boycott, you have the feeling that they don’t understand the complexity of the conflict,” Shmuli said. Breaking point Palmer, the council member, said her breaking point came when a citizen described how the Israeli government had expropriated their family farm, leaving them unable to breathe. Ohana responded, “You can’t breathe, but you can stab,” Palmer said. “That, I thought, was such a horrible thing to say: you are all criminals,” she said. “Just when Mr. Trump is saying to the Latino community, when we say our children don’t have a future, yeah, but you’re rapists and drug dealers.” Residents asked the council to take a stand and include the community in planning for future visitors. Roger Ehrlich sought public opposition to the Israeli government’s “discriminatory policies.” He said he talked with a delegate later Monday about his grandfather, a city councilman in Vienna, Austria, in 1938 who was killed by the Nazis. His grandfather, a Zionist, would roll over in his grave at the abuses that the Israelis have committed against the Palestinians, Ehrlich said. “We’ve got a lot at stake here, and I hope that this council will not be too polite,” he said, “because you have a historical responsibility to not allow this kind of greenwashing diplomacy to put a human face on what is currently now a very evil and unhumanitarian and undemocratic regime in Israel.” ================= COMMENT SECTION ==================== 4-12-2016 Sam Bryan The
Council is to be commended for allowing a bit of time for the
inter-faith protesters to raise questions about the Israeli government’s
treatment of Palestinians. The protesters were polite and thoughtful.
Episcopal minister Rev. John Heinemier greeted the delegates as
“brothers and sisters.” When he posed an obvious question about the
settlements being an impediment to peace, he was met by long,
intemperate harangues that never answered the question, but ranged over
the now threadbare propaganda tropes about no partners for peace, deals
that had been offered in the past, but rejected, complexity, etc. The
delegates summarily dismissed a fact sheet that was handed out by the
protesters as false without rebutting any of the points made. The tone
of the delegates was patronizing, demeaning and vituperative. Especially
egregious of course was the exchange, described in your article, that
was incomprehensibly mean spirited and essentially racist. There was
never an attempt to acknowledge the protesters’ concerns nor any attempt
to find common ground. 4-12-2016 Lee Mortimer I had to leave in the middle of the discussion, but I'm glad to learn our group got a chance to refute the deception the Knesset members were attempting. The Israelis might have planned on a genteel conversation about comparative government with pats on the back from town council members. But our presence forced them to defend Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupation. Though disheartening to hear a female Likud member launch a rant with, "God gave the land to the Jews," it should dispell any illusion that these are people interested in a just resolution of the conflict. 4-12-2016 Sam Bryan Well said Lee. Regarding “God gave the land to the Jews,” there’s a book published recently by the eminent Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann titled “Chosen?” that argues persuasively that the Biblical message is ambiguous regarding God choosing the Jews to occupy certain land. Parts of scripture say that the entitlement is conditional on the righteousness of the Israelites. It’s fine for the female Likud member to reference “The Book,”, but let’s look at the whole book. It has messages relating to the occupation that are decidedly unambiguous. Palestinian land is being occupied through stealing (settlements and separation wall) and through killing (incursive wars and extrajudicial executions). These actions are unambiguous contraventions of the Ten Commandments and, I will add, of the moral values of my Jewish friends. 4-13-2016 Miriam Thompson Thank you for your detailed coverage in this
morning's edition [http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/chapel-hill-news/article71421847.html
] of Monday's U.S. State Department International
Visitors Leadership Program's sponsored tour of 4 Israeli Knesset
members. The tour was coordinated by the Raleigh based International
Focus. Our Town of Chapel Hill agreed to host. Your new article captured
some of the key testimony at both the afternoon meeting between Council
and Knesset members, and at the evening's regularly scheduled Council
meeting. Although resident voices were raised initially in opposition to
the invitation, the visit has offered an important opportunity for faith
and human rights leaders to briefly testify and expose the $3.5 billion
in U.S. military aid to Israel that supports (with our tax dollars)
Israel's Occupation of Palestine; its illegal settlements built on
expropriated Palestinian land and tens of thousands of Palestinian home
demolitions; its night raids by police, detention and imprisonment of
Palestinian children as young as 10 years of age; its overwhelming
military might and devastating aerial bombardment and destruction of
Gaza's infrastructure and civilian death toll that the UN warns may
drive Gaza out of existence. Some posts to the Jerusalem Post
Gay Israeli lawmakers speak out against LGBT laws in North Carolina 4-14-2016 Lee Mortimer Whether the Knesset members feel sympathy for gay and transgender people is hardly the real issue of their appearance in Chapel Hill. The real issue is the contempt the MKs showed local citizens who asked them to ease the suffering of Palestinians who have lived under a half century of military occupation. Their response was to insult and belittle the local citizens, some of whom were Jewish. When one local Palestinian-American relayed how the theft of his family’s West Bank farm by the Israeli government had so constricted their lives they "cannot breathe," MK Ohana jumped up and shouted, “You can’t breathe, but you can stab.” The remark so offended one Town Council member that she abruptly left the meeting, saying "That, I thought, was such a horrible thing to say." Sending such disreputable representatives to harangue American audiences will surely backfire on Israel. 4-14-2016 Sam Bryan The protesters that were at the Town Council meeting the Knesset delegates attended were polite and thoughtful. An Episcopal minister greeted the delegates as “brothers and sisters.” When he posed an obvious question about the settlements being an impediment to peace, he was met by long, intemperate harangues that never answered the question, but ranged over the now threadbare propaganda tropes about no partners for peace, deals that had been offered in the past, but rejected, complexity, etc. The delegates summarily dismissed a fact sheet that was handed out by the protesters as false without rebutting any of the points made. The tone of the delegates was patronizing, demeaning and vituperative. There was never an attempt to acknowledge the protesters’ concerns nor any attempt to find common ground. If their mission in coming to Chapel Hill was to spread their propaganda in a town that is known for addressing the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, then, as said above, it backfired. |