Preparing for the Consulates' visit to Beit Sahour
Day 8 - November 17, 2000

It's actually the morning of the 18th here as I write this.  I couldn't get on line last night, and went to bed early instead of writing.

Friday was spent again typing some of the translated profiles, helping select photographs that will be used in a slide show today for the European Consulates visit.  We received at the office an email from one of you requesting a response to an email from David Dolan who is with a group called, "Christian Friends of Israel" I believe.  The article seems to paint this picture of Israel under heavy attack from the Palestinians and only firing back in self defense.  This is one of the most frustrating questions to try to answer, but it will continue to come up as long as this conflict
continues.  I asked Ghassan Andoni to respond to it first, but I will briefly give you my opinion based on what I know. 

Yes, of course, there are Palestinians shooting at Israelis.  (No one I know personally, thank God.)  But this is a war.  This would have been over a long time ago if it were totally one-sided.  While the methods and priorities and strategies continue to be debated within the community, I think that everyone here agrees and would like to be very clear about one thing:  THE PALESTINIANS ARE RESISTING OCCUPATION. 

Over the past 52 years they have been gradually forced from their homes into smaller and tighter areas.  They have lost basic freedoms, such as (for many) the right to worship in Israel, the right to hold and build on their own property without threat of it being taken or destroyed.

During the so-called "Peace Process" that Clinton was so proud of and many deluded themselves into believing, this process of stealing land, demolishing homes, illegally building Jewish settlements, restricting the freedom of innocent people to come and go, control of all of the resources, etc., have become even worse.  That is to say, that the Peace Process, begun at Oslo 7 years ago, was  one-sided, destined to fail and has only made life worse and more bleak for the Palestinian people.

All it did was legitimize the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel.  Israeli settlers and soldiers would still be here.  How can Arafat or anyone sign a document that agrees to Apartheid?!  Many of us, Israeli, American, and Palestinian, have realized for a long time, that this agreement could not work.  It was not ever a just and fair solution.  The longer it went on, the more certain that it would take a conflict to end it.  That is not to say that someone, strategically, said, let's start an armed
resistance now, but this was the only outcome possible for that process. 

So the Palestinians have had enough.  Many don't want to fight.  But they will not accept occupation indefinitely.  So back to our original question.  The viewpoint from here is that all Israeli soldiers within the West Bank and Gaza are invaders.  All Israeli settlers, most of the adults of whom are IDF reservists and therefore armed, are also invaders.  They are, as we've seen, by over 300 homes being destroyed in Beit Jala and Beit Sahour alone over the past 6 weeks, and over 200 people killed, very definitely hostile invaders.  They have attacked Palestinian civilians, just as brutally as the Israeli undercover soldiers were attacked in Ramallah.  They have attacked villagers trying to harvest their olives.  They have beaten and killed children of the Palestinians.  They have used Anti-tank missiles on Palestinian cars.  All of this in the Occupied territory.  Each Palestinian neighborhood is surrounded by settlements and/or military bases of the Israelis.  There is no Palestinian area which could not be destroyed at the whim of an Israeli general.  I am convinced that the only thing that has prevented this is the world outrage that would result from something that massive.  As I have said before, 2 or 3 Palestinian lives a day, and 2 or 3 homes destroyed each day, seems to be, for some bizarre reason acceptable to
the outside world.  But it is not acceptable to the Palestinians. 

I don't know any American who would allow someone to push you to the very
edge of your own country, occupy you militarily, confiscate your land and build enemy installations around every one of your villages, who would not, by some means, resist.  

The Jewish "neighborhood" of Gilo, which is the one questioned specifically by Mr. Dolan, is, right on top of Beit Jala.  It is a Jewish settlement built on confiscated Palestinian land within occupied territory.  To my knowledge, they have had one empty apartment burn as a result of Palestinian gunfire.  Apparently a dog was burned, but saved by Israeli Policemen during that fire.  Subsequently the town of Beit Jala was bombarded for most of that night with many homes destroyed and a retired German physician killed as he attempted to administer first aid to his neighbors.  Is this justified?  Even if every word that the Israelis report is true about
Palestinian attacks, all you have to do is look at the numbers, the innocent people and homes of innocent people that have been totally obliterated, to see that they are reaching desperately to find some way of justifying terrorizing the Palestinians, either to force acceptance of occupation or leave.  Unfortunately for them, the Palestinians are not going to take this without a fight.

God's mercy on us all!
Rhonda