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Fact-Finding Mission

The night of our arrival in Jerusalem was marked by a very gracious Shabbat meal hosted by Rabbi Michael Melchior and his wife Hannah. He is the former director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He stated that the situation is as grave as it has ever been in Israel. But he also holds that the ground is ready to produce genuine work towards peace.

A very heartening meeting took place with Professors Sami Adwan from Bethlehem University and Dan Bar-on, from Ben Gurion University. They shared about their joint project of peace studies they carry out with Palestinian and Israeli teachers. It was impressive to witness the mutual care and respect they showed to each other. This was to be the first of numerous examples of people joining hands across the conflict to find a way forward together and to create some mutual understanding between Palestinians and Israelis.

Professor Jehuda Bauer – Yad Vashem

As a genocide the Shoah can and must be compared to other genocides to discover the specifics of each genocide. Of course this is anathema to many Jews who wish to maintain that their experience is incomparable.

A)

1. Totality: Following definition by the other, every member of the Jewish race was marked for extinction. It was then unprecedented, but it has now been followed by Rwanda.
   
2. Universality: It was not just in Germany that Jews were marked out for extermination, but it was intended that in whatever country they lived they also would die.
   
3. Ideology: Ideology always has a pseudo-pragmatic function. But there was no pragmatism in the plan to exterminate the Jews. The holocaust was the only one based on ‘nightmares’ – christian anti-semitism. “Jews plan to take over the world, sot hey must be dealt with!”

So, for the above reasons, the Shoah is the most extreme case of genocide.

B)

It is important to disabuse people of the notion that the state of Israel was created out of the Holocaust. 4.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe were being made unwelcome. Desperate thinking led to the position “We must get out but we’ve nowhere to go”. The British were closing Palestine. This was all before the War.

There is only one reference to the Holocaust in the diplomatic argument for the establishment of the Jewish State.

C)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a context.

1. The Muslim World: Islam has sacred texts that are open to a variety of interpretations as also to contradictory interpretations. Fundamentalists of whatever religion including Muslims, opt for a literal interpretation of the sacred text to the exclusion of every other possible interpretation.
   
2. Radical Islam: ?Bana in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood. The reasoning behind this decision was as follows: We have been submitted or subjugated to colonialism because we’ve been disobedient to the Word. If we obey then we will be given the government of the world. So the Brotherhood took steps to win the hearts of the people through providing education, health centers etc.
   
3. Said Qutb was the refounder of Radical Islam. He was anti-nationalist and was executed by Nasser in Egypt. In his tractate he says that Jews must be killed because they are the enemies of Islam. In contemporary Radical Islam the ideology has been developed by such people as Ahman Zahawiri (the ideologue of Usama bin Laden), Jusif Karadawi and Mandudi (+1979 in Pakistan). They seek:

• World control
• Abolition of national States
• Abolition of individual States

The movement is ruled by priests. They hold that democracy is anti-God. The way forward has already been made clear by God in the Sharia.

They oppose western civilization entirely. This is the latest genocidal threat to Jews. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Radical Islam. “We will not compromise, we want all of Palestine”.

Bolshevism

National Socialism

Radical Islam……….all are quasi-religious movements, Fundamentalist, all are anti-national and sought world government.

As far as Americans and Western Europe is concerned, they need to understand that you can’t fight terrorists (ideologues) with weapons alone. It is necessary to recruit moderate Muslims by offering them honour, equality, food and projects.

Conclusions:

• Jews have a right to be here in this land. So do the Palestinians have a right to live on this land.
  
• Clinton’s plan is right
  
• 70% of Settlers are willing to move out of the Settlements.
  
• Most Palestinians favour a Jewish State, but they support terrorism out of a deep sense of desperation.
  
• Someone – U.S. or E.U. – must force the protagonists to sit at the table.

Unfortunately the U.S. is driven by:

• Right-wing fundamentalist christians,
• Right-wing fundamentalists Jews
• Determination to conquer Iraq and so to control their oil fields.

Ambassador Reuven Merchav

Jerusalem is a place with too much history and too little geography. It represents a cluster of conflicting interests – faith, demography, economic interests etc. It is a very complicated mosaic.

Special status of cultural and spiritual significance, guaranteed by international oversight.

But neither Jews nor Palestinians can have political signs within the city of Jerusalem.

We must be humane but not suicidal.