Exchange with Khalid Amayreh about Abu-Mazen
This exchange with Khalid Amayreh, took place after I distributed a news-piece about Abu Mazen (That was before Abu Mazen became PM).
It opens with me sending the article I found in Ha'aretz to various people.
----- Message 1 -----
from:
Asher Shla'in
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 5:12 AM
Subject: Abu-Mazen
I guess many already read the following news-item, but I wanted to make sure.
-------------------------------------------------------------=================================================================================
Ha'aretz Wednesday, November 27, 2002 Kislev 22, 5763 Israel Time: 03:34 (GMT+2)
Abu Mazen slams intifada as disaster
By Daniel Sobelman and Arnon Regular
Palestinian violence has in the last two years cost
the Palestinians everything they had gained until then and must be halted
immediately before it does even greater damage, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), the
head of the PLO's executive committee, told a closed lecture in Gaza on Monday.
But his remarks were greeted angrily by the listeners. They included leading
members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, including some involved in Fatah's
military wing; leaders of the "Popular Committees," one of the most
extreme militant organizations in Gaza; and representatives of the Gaza refugee
camps.
According to a transcript of the lecture, which was published in full yesterday
by the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Abu Mazen - who was once considered
a leading contender to succeed Arafat - said, "what has happened during
these two years, as we now see, is the complete destruction of everything we
had built until then. We are living below the poverty line in Gaza and the West
Bank and our nation is enduring loss, hunger and suffering. And the reason for
this is that many people responded to the Israeli provocations and the intifada
departed from its natural path."
Those who began using guns, he charged, turned the intifada into a
"military campaign" rather than "a popular uprising that
expressed popular anger - to which no one could have objected to and against
which no one could have employed the methods of destruction now being employed.
"As you see, all the cities of the West Bank are now subjected every day
to operations of destruction because of Israel's exploitation [of the
Palestinian violence]."
He specifically criticized the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
for publicly claiming responsibility for the murder of cabinet minister Rehavam
Ze'evi, saying it was this that caused Israel to besiege Arafat's Ramallah
headquarters last spring.
Abu Mazen called for an immediate end to the violence, as "people can no
longer endure the burden of life under these conditions." And Gaza, he
said, was the logical place to begin this new approach. "I call on the
Palestinians to say `enough,' clearly and determinedly, because if we stop, we
can prevent an Israeli invasion of Gaza," he said.
The Palestinians, he continued, should have conducted negotiations with Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, as Sharon's unwillingness to compromise would then have turned
most Israelis against him.
He noted that when Sharon was first elected, many Palestinians predicted that
his inability to restore security to Israel would cause Israelis to oust him as
prime minister.
Instead, "Sharon did not fall, because the intifada strayed from the
correct path. And I think Sharon is currently the most important leader the
Zionist movement has had since [Theodor] Herzl - who did not enjoy the 80 percent
support that Sharon does."
Abu Mazen also criticized Israeli Arabs for having engaged in large-scale
rioting when the intifada first broke out, saying this had caused Israelis to
view them as disloyal to the state.
Because of this, he said, it will now be much harder to persuade Israel to
agree to let Palestinian refugees return to its borders.
© Copyright 2004 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved
-------------------------------------------------------------=================================================================================
----- Message 2 -----
from: amayreh
To: Asher Shla'in
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: Abu Mazen
Abu Mazen's views, like himself, have never been popular among Palestinians. He speaks about the Intifada as if it was a Palestinian choice. The truth is that Israeli repression made it inescapable.
KA
----- Message 3 -----
from: Asher
Shla'in
To: Khalid Amayreh
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: Abu Mazen and the inescapable
Khalid! I think I know you well enough, and I do respect your intelligence.
That is why I think that you can't really believe that the intifada was not the fruit of a deliberate policy.
After all, the situation repression-wise when the intifada began was much better than at present, and much better also than the years preceding it. The timing was politically (mis-)calculated.
Often people who speak the truth are not popular with their contemporaries. On spiritual level such people ought to be envied - though at a certain society they might pay with their lives.
I recognize your suffering - it is no interest of Israel. Our government policy may be not compassionate enough - but our public does not rejoice at atrocities and innocent death.
Khalid, we are in the midst of a common tragedy.
Cannot grassroots people adopt a reformed approach?
Yours, with great respect,
Asher
----- Message 4 -----
from:
amayreh
To: Asher Shla'in
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: Abu Mazen and the inescapable
Shalom Asher. I, too, respect your intelligence and sense of fairness. "The fruit of deliberate policy" is vague. Yesterday, Your Knesset speaker Abraham Burg and our Legislative Council's speaker Ahmed Qrei issued a statement recognizing that both sides were equally responsible for the intifada.
Asher: If you examine Israeli papers during the few months preceding the intifada, you will find that things were not quite normal. The Barak and Netanyahu governments seized tens of thousands of dunams in the West Bank, many innocent Palestinians were killed, numerous others were assassinated. Palestinians were being hunt down on roadblocks and checkpoints. Israel was tightening the noose around our necks as a people. Israel unilateral actions corroded whatever substance which the Oslo process had.
On our side, we were given a police state without a state, a corrupt entity run by pseudo-revolutionaries who were interested more in making hasty profits and less in state-building. I'm sure you are aware of this.
So, in light of this incendiary situation, the outbreak of the intifada was only a matter of time.
Khalid
----- Message 5 -----
from: Asher
Shla'in
To: Khalid Amayreh
Cc: Other People
Subject: Re: Abu Mazen and the inescapable
Dear Khalid.
Thank you for your more detailed response.
"The fruit of a deliberate policy" is indeed not a clear-cut expression. Without distributing the responsibility to the whole situation, one can argue (as follows also from Abu Mazen's lecture) that the break of violence at a certain time, and maintaining it for many months was a Palestinian policy decision aimed at achieving political benefits. Abu Mazen criticized it not as being immoral and inhumane, but mainly as detrimental to the Palestinian cause as he sees it.
You can imagine that there are things in your message with which I disagree.
Your description of the situation before the intifada seems to me exaggerated.
People deliberately killed by the Israeli government, usually could not be called "innocent" except for rare mistakes - and I realize you may consider all of them national heroes.
I believe innocent people were killed too - but not as a policy; much of it is a result of mistake or of proximity to sources of fire or danger. There were some cases of Israeli individuals who criminally hurt or even killed Palestinians without just reason - but our public never supported this. Death of innocent Palestinians was never celebrated.
Much of the suffering stemmed from security measures that indeed were not always conducted in a proper way.
In my opinion, the Oslo Accords were breached long before the Intifada - and not just by unilateral actions of Israel. If they are still heeded to, that is because they were not yet replaced by any decisive legal definition of the situation.
I do agree that you were given a "police state without a state, a corrupt entity run by pseudo-revolutionaries who were interested more in making hasty profits and less in state-building".
I think I wrote to you once that this is something we will need your forgiveness for. I find no way to justify this folly - I can only understand it as a part of the tragic flow of events beginning long ago.
One of the leaders of this regime, a person I do not sympathize with, who was a witness to the policy-making of this "police state without a state" now criticizes the intifada as a blunder.
I can agree with his analysis - but I am not impressed with his motives.
You know that I look for ways of reconciliation. I do not see how it can be advanced by the political elites of any of the peoples. Even if the left in Israel will prevail (which is highly improbable), peace will not be advanced, because the leftist policy is to preserve the PA in order to separate the societies.
The only hope is at the grassroots, who must find courage and start talking compassion, understanding - and I daresay - love.
Made a fool of myself, eh?
Asher
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