A Cautious Vote for Co-Existence.
August 12, 2010
I was shot by a Palestinian terrorist nine years ago on the pre-1967 side of the so-called green line marking the 1949 armistice line between Israel and Jordan, so no one has to persuade me that a terrorist attack can occur at any time or any place and that the relative quiet which has prevailed in the past few years is a fragile one that could evaporate in an instant.
It was August of 2001, one of the worst months of the Intifada. A half dozen other shooting incidents occurred on that same night and most victims didn’t fare quite as well I did escaping with relatively minor wounds. Survivors of the horrendous suicide bombing at the Sabarro restaurant were on the same floor of the hospital as I was. I also know that while the vast majority of terrorist attacks in the world are carried out by Moslems, probably 99% of Moslems would never themselves engage in a terrorist attack. I know sadly though that a large number would cheer the others on. Nonetheless while I remain very cautious, I have never really given up on the notion that perhaps some kind of co-existence can work here in this volatile part of the world. Arabs and Jews seem destined to live side by side for a long time and ultimately we ought to find a way to make that work.
The other night on my way home from an evening work-out, I stopped to get gas at the Gush Etzion intersection not far from Efrat where I have lived for 16 years. Efrat is what people refer to as a settlement, though to me, it is simply a community on land which has been Jewish owned long before Israel was established, about ten miles south of Jerusalem which is home to something on the order of ten thousand people in the midst of a block of communities with about sixty thousand people. It is an area with a long and intensive Jewish history going back to period of the Bible.
The entrance to the gas station was backed up quite a distance and on getting a bit closer I could see that the reason was a line up of cars trying to get in to the recently opened branch of a discount supermarket adjacent to the gas station. It was a Tuesday night and not usually the busiest shopping night of the week, especially not at 9:15 in the evening. Once I got a bit closer I could see that most of the cars bore Palestinian license plates and I remembered that this was the end of the first day of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Moslem calendar. A month from now, it will be Israelis shopping for the Jewish New Year.
In fact, from the moment the supermarket opened it has been something of an island of co-existence, though not without some generating some controversy. Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Moslems, and Christians from nearby Bethlehem, shop and work at the store. Interestingly the opposition to this has not focused mainly on security worries even though there was a nearly catastrophic attempt by a Palestinian to blow up a supermarket in Efrat in 2002. Security is a concern of course and it seemed to me that the security guards at the entrance took their job seriously. I certainly hope so. Most of the noise has been about the possibility that the mingling of young Jewish and Arab employees could lead to inter-marriage. If that will be the biggest worry that Israelis face in this increasingly hostile world, I think we can handle it.
It’s an experiment of course, and God forbid like any experiment it could fail. I actually hope it succeeds and becomes one more place among the paltry few were Jews and Arabs can face each other as neighbors and not as enemies.
Benjamin Dansker
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Building Rawabi
Building Rawabi
In mid-January of this year I was in Tel Aviv for a presentation by Bashar Masri, President of Massar, a Ramallah-based holding company with investment interests in a number of projects in what may one day become a Palestinian state. Masri, having lived in America most of his life, moved to Ramallah some years ago to share his business acumen, know how, and connections with the locals in order to assist in building the economic trappings of a new Palestinian society.
The purpose of the meeting in Tel Aviv was to hear about the new Palestinian city of Rawabi north of Ramallah. Rawabi will be the first ever Palestinian municipality built according to a master plan which, when completed, will provide housing, work and recreation for 40,000 people. At the time I clearly saw the positive ramifications of this project for those interested in seeing the development of responsible Palestinian governmental leadership.
The planned City of Rawabi is a major undertaking of the Palestinian leadership funded in great part by the Qatari government through one of its real estate arms.
This morning’s Jerusalem Post carries a story headlined “Settlers [I really don’t like that term] Protest New Palestinian City” which says the following:
Settlers who believe a Palestinian state is being unilaterally built in their backyard plan to march on Thursday afternoon, to protest against what will soon be the new Palestinian city of Rawabi. Rawabi is 9 km northwest of Ramallah, 25 km south of Nablus and 20 km north of Jerusalem. …..Settlers have opposed the city’s construction, fearing that it is part of a plan by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to unilaterally seek statehood.”
My reaction is that we simply cannot have things both ways.
For years those of us living in Israel have lamented the fact that the Palestinians have no visionary leadership, that the leaders they do have allow their people to live in squalor and that the only objective of the leadership is to stay in power. Now along comes Salam Fayyad with an actual plan to create something that begins to look like progress and development, and yet we still complain.
I, for one, applaud the plan to build this new city because for the first time in the 62+ years of the history of the State of Israel, our neighbors who, for the moment, live under our control, are actually doing something constructive about creating a framework that bespeaks economic and social progress.
As for where they will build this city, of course it will be near existing population centers. After all, we share a small land mass that, at its widest in the center of the country only spans 66 km or 40 miles. So no matter where the city would be built, if it is close to Palestinian population areas it will be close to Israel as well. And as for the inclination of the Government of Israel to cede 50 hectares of land to the project in order to build a decent access road, that is an absolute necessity as the present 1-lane Ottoman-built cow path is hardly sufficient to handle the regular arrival of building materials and construction vehicles.
Again, we cannot have things both ways. We cannot continue to complain that the Palestinians are guilty of letting their people live uneducated and in squalor and then complain, yet again, when they try to do something constructive about the situation.
True, that Salam Fayyad may not be the great white hope. True, that he may not even be such a great friend of Israel. True, that the city will be built close to existing settlements such as Ateret. All that may be true but what is also true is that someone has finally come along with a reasonable plan to begin addressing some of the social and economic issues of Palestinian society and is prepared to do without using Israel as an excuse why it cannot progress. Regardless of our discomfort, we should support such initiatives as economic progress remains the only hope for peace.
Sources tell us that Ezra the Scribe urged his disciples not to shy away from a task simply because they knew, in advance, that they could not complete it. The lesson has meaning for us today as well. The task of peace may very well not be completed in our time but we, nevertheless, have an obligation to pursue it.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem, August 11, 2010
In mid-January of this year I was in Tel Aviv for a presentation by Bashar Masri, President of Massar, a Ramallah-based holding company with investment interests in a number of projects in what may one day become a Palestinian state. Masri, having lived in America most of his life, moved to Ramallah some years ago to share his business acumen, know how, and connections with the locals in order to assist in building the economic trappings of a new Palestinian society.
The purpose of the meeting in Tel Aviv was to hear about the new Palestinian city of Rawabi north of Ramallah. Rawabi will be the first ever Palestinian municipality built according to a master plan which, when completed, will provide housing, work and recreation for 40,000 people. At the time I clearly saw the positive ramifications of this project for those interested in seeing the development of responsible Palestinian governmental leadership.
The planned City of Rawabi is a major undertaking of the Palestinian leadership funded in great part by the Qatari government through one of its real estate arms.
This morning’s Jerusalem Post carries a story headlined “Settlers [I really don’t like that term] Protest New Palestinian City” which says the following:
Settlers who believe a Palestinian state is being unilaterally built in their backyard plan to march on Thursday afternoon, to protest against what will soon be the new Palestinian city of Rawabi. Rawabi is 9 km northwest of Ramallah, 25 km south of Nablus and 20 km north of Jerusalem. …..Settlers have opposed the city’s construction, fearing that it is part of a plan by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to unilaterally seek statehood.”
My reaction is that we simply cannot have things both ways.
For years those of us living in Israel have lamented the fact that the Palestinians have no visionary leadership, that the leaders they do have allow their people to live in squalor and that the only objective of the leadership is to stay in power. Now along comes Salam Fayyad with an actual plan to create something that begins to look like progress and development, and yet we still complain.
I, for one, applaud the plan to build this new city because for the first time in the 62+ years of the history of the State of Israel, our neighbors who, for the moment, live under our control, are actually doing something constructive about creating a framework that bespeaks economic and social progress.
As for where they will build this city, of course it will be near existing population centers. After all, we share a small land mass that, at its widest in the center of the country only spans 66 km or 40 miles. So no matter where the city would be built, if it is close to Palestinian population areas it will be close to Israel as well. And as for the inclination of the Government of Israel to cede 50 hectares of land to the project in order to build a decent access road, that is an absolute necessity as the present 1-lane Ottoman-built cow path is hardly sufficient to handle the regular arrival of building materials and construction vehicles.
Again, we cannot have things both ways. We cannot continue to complain that the Palestinians are guilty of letting their people live uneducated and in squalor and then complain, yet again, when they try to do something constructive about the situation.
True, that Salam Fayyad may not be the great white hope. True, that he may not even be such a great friend of Israel. True, that the city will be built close to existing settlements such as Ateret. All that may be true but what is also true is that someone has finally come along with a reasonable plan to begin addressing some of the social and economic issues of Palestinian society and is prepared to do without using Israel as an excuse why it cannot progress. Regardless of our discomfort, we should support such initiatives as economic progress remains the only hope for peace.
Sources tell us that Ezra the Scribe urged his disciples not to shy away from a task simply because they knew, in advance, that they could not complete it. The lesson has meaning for us today as well. The task of peace may very well not be completed in our time but we, nevertheless, have an obligation to pursue it.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem, August 11, 2010
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