Peace movement Pantheon of oblivion

What all the following people have in common?
Angelo Frammartino,
Ziva Goldovsky,
Mavis pat,
And Dr. Levi Billig,
A young Italian, an Israeli teenager, a 46 years old American nurse, and a British burn Israeli Orientalist? They all lived in different periods but their lives ended the same way, they were murdered by Palestinians; by people they tried to reach and help.
24 years old Angelo Frammartino was a human rights activist working with Palestinian children in East Jerusalem; a Palestinian named Ashraf Hanaisha stabbed him to death on August 10^th 2006; apparently he mistook him for a Jew.
Ziva Goldovsky was an 18 years Old Russian burn Israeli peace activist who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, a friend of her Palestinian boyfriend, On August 10^th 1988.
Mavis Pat was a 46 years old American nurse working in Gaza Baptist Hospital. She was murdered on the 15^th of January 1972 by a grenade thrown into a car driven by her employer, hospital manager Reverend Edward Nicolas, who was wounded from submachine gun fire during that attack, along with one of his three kids that were in the car with them (All Americans).
Dr. Levi Billig, 39, was murdered in his home apartment in the neighborhood of Talpiot in Jerusalem by a Palestinian sniper on August 21^st 1936. He was one of the leading names in the ‘Brit Shalom’ peace association, and his death is considered to be the point in time when this group ceased to be a factor of any importance in Zionist politics.
Their tragic death is more of an indicator of the shortcoming of the peace movement then it is of Palestinian brutality, which has plenty of indicators from other chapters of the protracted Israeli Palestinian conflict; because in the history of the peace movement they are all in a special pantheon, The Pantheon of oblivion.





Angelo Frammartino is still remembered somewhere on the web, because his death was relatively recent, but as Calev Ben David had pointed out it is very little, faintly little, when compared to all the effort been made to sanctify Rachel Corrie.
Ziva Goldovsky was forgotten almost immediately after her murder. During the first days after her murder, and the investigation that followed, left wing newspapers in Israel, Haaretz, Davar, and Al Hamishmar, dealt heavily with the story, but as the shock subsided, she vanished from memory, only to be mention occasionally by far right Jews who drooled over her death the way Max Blumenthal does in his frame jobs.
On the Mavis Pat story I run by accident, while going through old newspaper looking for something completely different, and I’m probably misspelling her name. All I know is this, had she lived she could have been by now someone’s grandma and great grandma.

Tragic though their stories are, in the greater story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict they were barely a footnote, partially because no one made an effort to remember them, (only recently the family of Ziva Goldovsky opened a web site commemorating 20 years to her death), and partially because they did not affect the course of history. But when it comes to the story Dr. Levi Billig, it is not about sidelining a personal tragedy but about editing out nearly an entire chapter of history, the chapter of ‘Brit Shalom’ and its era.

‘Brit Shalom’ was a political association founded in 1926 in Jerusalem by leading Jewish thinkers, scholars and political activists, see here; its declared purpose was “To pave a road and an understanding between Hebrews and Arabs towards common forms of life in the land of Israel. By way of complete equality of the political rights of both nations with wide autonomy.” In 1930 they advocated a bi national state. And some of its members were even willing to limit Jewish immigration.

The concession they offered were difficult to a lot of Jews to accept because they were regarded as a deep cut in the core Zionist beliefs and aspirations, and in the Arabs side there was no response, just a few second level personalities willing to listen. But what devastated this movement the most was Arab terrorism. The riots of 1936 claimed the lives of dozens of Jews mostly civilians, and one political casualty - ‘Brit Shalom’.

To clarify, these were heinous atrocities. In the first two days of the riots, April 19 & 20, more then 20 Jews where murdered by Arab mob, mostly in Tel Aviv and its vicinity but also in Jerusalem and Haifa. They were stoned, knifed, beaten or shot to death; any means available was used. This was followed by a wave of refugees, as hundreds of Jews fled from Jaffa to Tel Aviv and from mixed neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Haifa into those with dominate Jewish population. Afterwards, nearly everyday at least one Jew was murdered, often several. The attacks were all over the land, the victims were men, women, children and the elderly, Ultra Orthodox Jews who then were strong anti Zionists, and secular Jews, European Jews and non European Jews, some were born in the land, some have been there for many years and others only recently arrived.
During the days leading to Billig’s murder evil was very concentrated, but not much different then what had happened before and after. On the 27^th of July two Palestinians above the age of twenty, throw a bomb at a crowd of Yemenite children as they left for home from their Talmud Torah, religious school, in Tel Aviv.
Six children were hurt: Shimon Ashkenazi age 9, Amram Yitzhak age 11, Cohen Yekhiel aged 9, Shmuel Barkhiel age 11, David Shubri age 8, and Immanuel Cohen.
The perpetrators escaped a police chase with the help of a mob from the Arab village of Menashia that violently kept the police from arresting them. Even though no one was killed the horror from such monstrosity sent shock waves throughout the Jewish community in the land of Israel.
On August the 13^th most members of the Aunger family from Safed were killed when a bomb was thrown into their home, the father, Alther was 36, his son Avraham 6, the daughters Hava and Yafa were 7 and 9. Two days later several workers were killed in an ambush in the Carmel Forest. The next day 8 years old David Albalah was killed by a bomb thrown from a train passing through Hertzl Street in Tel Aviv. And on the 17 that month the nurses Martha Fink and Nehama Tzedek were gunned down in front of the Government Hospital in Jaffa were they worked, taking care of Arab patients.
In face of such constant atrocities ‘Brit Shalom’ deep cut concession looked more and more unattainable, unrealistic and unappealing. It also affected its membership eroding it more and more. The final blow came on the 21^st of August, when the Palestinian murder campaign hit home and hit hard. Dr. Levi Billig was not just a gifted man and a committed Orientalist, he was also a very liked individual with Jewish, Arabs and British friends as indicated by the eulogies given by his friends Dr. Shlomo Dov Goitein and Dr. Yehuda Magnes at his funeral, two men who shared his dreams and visions.







This murder turned ‘Brit Shalom’ from a marginal group to whatever definition there is for something that is less then that. But the eulogy for the movement and its ideas came two month earlier by one of its founders and former member Arthur Rupin, who said on May 16: “The peace will not be established in this land by an ‘agreement’ with the Arabs, rather it will come in due time, when we are strong enough so the Arabs will not be so certain in the results of the struggle and be forced to accept us as an existing fact.”

Now, how much different is that from what Zeev Jabotinsky had said 13 years earlier in his famous “About The Iron Wall” essay?
Not much different at all, and that is the whole point.
Because what the peace movement had edited out here, was not just a chapter in history, nor the conclusion that the other side was right, a frightening one to any hard line dogmatic ideologue, but one that he can still dispute if he insists (or she). But the mere possibility that the other side was right; dogmatism in its worse form is about certainties, absolute and total, everything has been written in advance and the possibility of error is non existence, worse then that, it is incomprehensible. From there picking and choosing from history what is ideologically convenient is not very far, it is almost unavoidable. But whatever the motives are, picking and choosing from history will always be dishonest, just as when one victim of violence, Rachel Corry, is more cherished then the others, only this time it has a moral price tag. And that price tag includes the morality and credibility of people that are not just peace activists but also peace monopolists.





Correction: in my first post about ‘Brit Tzedeck v’Shalom’ I had mention Dr. Yehuda Magnes as one of the founders of ‘Brit Shalom’, that was a mistake on my part. Dr. Magnes was associated with this group through the Hebrew University, which he headed and many of the founders of ‘Brit Shalom’ worked at, and by the similarity of their views. But he was never a member; as far as he was concerned they were not moderate enough.
I thank those who had corrected me.

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the core problem, David Masters and Si’akh Lokhamim

In Btvs booklet about the 40^th anniversary of the occupation, Steven David Masters, their second president elect, demonstrate the core problem with his co believers approach to the realities Israel and Israelis face.
In his piece he glorifies an anthology of conversations with veterans of the 1967 war made by Amos Oz, Muki Tzur and other members of the kibbutz movement a year after that war. It was called “The seventh day; soldiers talks about the six day war”, or in Hebrew ‘Si’akh Lokhamim’, (si’ahk is Hebrew for a conversation that is more meaningful then just talk).

This Si’akh Lokhamim was an important soul searching experience for a lot of Israelis in the years after the victory of the six-day war. But with 40 years insight it had generated some criticism. That criticism focuses on the exclusion of combatants who were not members of kibbutzim from Si’akh Lokhamim. Most notably among them are the students of ‘Mercaz Harav’ the religious academic institution in Jerusalem from which the settlers’ movement came, but also and probably more important are the non European Jews from the development towns and the low-income neighborhoods in the cities.
The reasons for this exclusion may have been just a matter of convenience, both social and psychological. It is easier for a researcher to interview people with the same background as his, and it is easier for them open up to him. The may have also been an element of elitism, as some critics here in Israel will say, after all many of the country leaders in those days did came from the kibbutzim, others will point to the heavy price the kibbutzim paid in that war, because they where the elite they served in and lead many of the combat units in the IDF and the price they paid was disproportionally higher then other segments of the society. An inner discussion was therefore badly needed.
Whatever the reasons, this exclusion, which Masters applauds, is now blamed for what is now known in Israel as the left wing bubble or the Tel Aviv bubble, the inability of major left wing movements such as ‘Peace Now’ and the Meretz party to reach to other sections of the Israeli society beyond the kibbutzim and the Urban Ashkenazi elite.

Glorifying a bubble suggests that the glorifier himself lives in a bubble. And a good indicator of that is the image he has of Si’akh Lokhamim, because that image, of a moral outcry against the occupation is wrong. Si’akh Lokhamim did discuss morality, the morality of war, of killing other people, of getting killed, and leading others to their death, and the feeling towards those responsible to that death, the leaders of both sides.
Back then in 1968 the Israeli equation of Ashkenazi kibbutznic = left wing peace activist did not exist, and not all the views expressed in Si’akh Lokhamim will be considered left wing peace activists talk today, such as the views of Aharon and Lotan at the beginning of the book, about the Israeli relation to Jerusalem and the security importance of the newly gained territories. Lotan also recalls how in the days leading to the war a Jewish shop keeper started making a lot of many selling knives to local Israeli Arabs, who were buying them in big numbers, when he realized what they were for (killing Jews, though the book does not say so explicitly) he closed his bossiness. In Ramat Yochanan a discussion between two generations took place, and in it both father and son said the war strengthened their connection to the land, and other war veterans spoke of hating the enemy, the Arabs. These are hardly left wing views, especially not the kind that fit the rigid worldview of Btvs, the most dominate of them was the realization the if the war had ended differently the other side would not have such soul searching conversations.
It is an irony of history that this left wing bubble sees its own origin through the crust of its bubble. Here in Israel since the beginning of the Oslo process, Palestinian mass murder campaigns had blown it up into more and more diminishing sizes. What is the situation on the other side of the Atlantic I do not know, but clearly with at least one group of political activists it as strong as if the Oslo process hasn’t even begun.

This is a continuation of an earlier post.

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom Vs. Brit Shalom.

Brit Tzedeck v'Shalom – Peace & Justice Alliance, is a contemporary far left organization of north American Jews, operating mostly outside of Israel. Its name, in Hebrew is reminiscent of the historic ‘Brit Shalom’, ‘Peace Alliance’. A far left Zionist group in Israel of the 1930’s, then under the British mandatory rule, that was willing to make painful concessions to the Arabs in exchange for peace.
I won’t be surprised if the contemporary group had chosen its name to invoke the memory of the old one. Quite frankly it seems very transparent.
But are they the same?
The answer is NO, and it is not a humble ‘no’.
Looking at the record of statements and deeds (mostly statement) of the contemporary group a picture of mediocrity arises, full of immoral and irrational shortcomings.
It starts right in the front, with their title “Peace and Justice Alliance”. The adding of the word ‘justice’ is no small change to the difference between this group and the historic ‘Brit Shalom’, it is a fundamental change, as grave as the high value of peace and justice are in our democratic civilization.
Grouping together ‘peace & justice’ is a veteran element in Palestinian propaganda. It plays on the fact that we all want peace and we all want justice.
But put together these admirable values don’t fit.
Justice is subjective Peace is objective.
Justice is something people are willing to fight and die for and that includes going to war, peace is something we make painful concessions for, painful because we believe our causes to be just.
Which is why the Palestinian slogan “No justice No peace” has no peace in it, because justice by them is the maxim Palestinian demands, the right of return and the destruction of Israel.
Whether btvs choose their title out of shared malice or gullibility is irrelevant; that title is a fraud and they are apart of it.
Btsv claim they want Israel’s best interest, security and peace and moral integrity, but more then once a forgiving over-concern to the Palestinians slips out.
Take for example their reaction to the bombing of the 'Shefild Club’ in Rishon Letzion on May 7^th 2002:

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, strongly condemns the suicide bombing in Rishon Letzion that took the lives of 15 Israelis and caused many more serious injuries.

The bombing is deplorable not only because the victims were unarmed, innocent civilians, but because of the excuse it gives Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to escalate his military reprisals. "Clearly, the Palestinian extremists that carried out this horrific attack want to disrupt the momentum of international efforts to find a just resolution to the conflict. Sharon¹s promised "harsh response" will mean they¹ve succeeded," said Clare Kinberg, a member of Brit Tzedek's board.

Israel’s defending itself from such atrocities is ‘excuses’ thus the lives of the armed members of the groups that carried out such attacks are equal to that of unarmed Israelis. They had condemned the attack, and immediately contradicted themselves by denying the right of self-defense.
And from their booklet for the 40th anniversary of the occupation, this is what Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman had said

Both Israelis and Palestinians have perpetrated violence against the other, and both have endured terrible losses. But there is no parity between the two. There is no symmetry between the occupier and the occupied.
Israel has occupied Palestinian lands for 40 years. It has systematically violated international law. It has built illegal settlements, demolished homes, confiscated land, destroyed the infrastructure, shattered the economy, and engaged in widespread torture and assassinations. For this we must hold Israel accountable. And from this we must not turn away.

Saying there is no symmetry between occupied and occupier is a license for the occupied to do all sort of atrocities. Calling Israel combating armed enemy combatants assassinations, denies Israel’s the right to defend its citizens.
Thus she had demonstrated two large moral holes, magnified by unverified and exaggerated charges.
And as far as their founder and the living spirit behind the movement, Marcia Freedman, is concerned, even after the disengagement, Israel is still the occupier of Gaza.
But the most outrageous thing is their chronology of events from 1967 to 2007 in that booklet. In it are omitted the mass murder campaigns by Hamas in 1994 and 1996, as well as the one carried out by all armed Palestinian organizations during the second intifada. Netanyahu just happened to get elected in 1996, and the IDF just happened to reoccupy the WB in 2002 and 2003.
This is not anti Israel; it is anti Israelis.
And this goes on farther in their booklet and press releases.
But the main point here is not their moral shortcomings, which is just a syndrome, but their mediocrity, a mediocrity that was unable to understand the whole aspects of security in the Israeli discussion about the territories.
After all that had happened since the Oslo process begun, and the second intifiada, btvs still have no grasp as to what their asking/demanding Israelis to risk.
‘Brit shalom’ on the other hand had members and supporters who knew that very well. And were asking a lot more, since they were asking us to give up the hope of a national home in exchange of peace:
Martin Buber, a theologian and a moralist who was there at the foundation of the Zionist movement.
Arthur Ruppin who was one of leading land buyers (redeemers) for the Zionist movement, and Ernst Simon, who fled Nazi Germany, to the land of Israel, and others. They had the decency to call what they were asking peace and not justice. Unlike the members of btvs, they where a known quantity, who contributed a lot to the formation of the Zionist movement and the formation of the future state of Israel, even though their views were unpopular. Brit Shalom members and supporters had earned the right to offer the deep and painful concessions they had offered the Arab side. But what gave btvs the right to ignore us the citizens of Israel, our concerns, our debates, and our disappointments from the peace process? Our concerns for the live of our loved ones, and preach us morality behind a title that show ignorance in both peace and justice?