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the road to middle east peace
by carolyn toll oppenheim
this article was published in "challenge of shalom" edited by naomi goodman and murray polner, new society publishers.
i cherish a yellowing printed invitation that is still tacked to the bulletin board over my desk, a memento of the long journey on the road to peace. it announces a "private gathering" on june 2, 1987, to meet with "reuven kaminer, member of an israeli peace delegation to rumania where he met with prominent palestinian representatives." for that action he was prosecuted by the israeli government. the gathering was a fundraiser for kaminer's defense and his codefendants in my brookline, massachusetts, home sponsored by the now-defunct new jewish agenda.
covert meetings between israelis and palestinians begun in the 1970s -- many nurtured by american jewish peace activists -- escalated, despite the legal risks. in december, 1988, five american jews met secretly with plo chairman yasser arafat in stockholm and succeeded in persuading him to clarify his statements to qualify for u.s. recognition to reopen a dialogue. these five were honored by the jewish peace fellowship -- the only jewish organization to do so -- with the abraham joshua heschel peace award, as was israeli peace activist abie nathan, who sent his acceptance speech on a cassette from prison. (he had been jailed for violating an israeli law forbidding contacts with the plo, a law since revoked). meanwhile, kaminer's case was still pending in the israeli courts.
in march, 1989, an astonished new york audience heard nabil sha'arh, deputy to arafat, reveal details of secret friendships with jewish leaders, which he credited with helping palestinian leaders finally defy their own rejectionists to embrace a two-state solution publicly. sha'ath spoke at "the road to peace," a conference at columbia university, which brought together more than two dozen israeli peace activists, including four israeli knesset members, six members of the inner circle of the plo, and members of the american-jewish and arab communities. none of the israelis and palestinians spoke directly to each other at that conference, so as not to violate the israeli law against talking to a member of the plo. but they tested each other, carefully gauging each others' reactions to ideas floated as trial balloons. and their views were carried back and forth by american-jewish peace activists who had long dialogued with both and had won some trust as "bridge" people.
only two months later, sha'ath publicly debated israeli knesset member yael dayan at a harvard university seminar hosted by professor herbert kelman of the university's center for international affairs before a packed audience. (kelman, a jew who had fled nazi-occupied austria as a youth and later devoted much of his academic work to israeli-palestinian peace, was credited by palestinians after the 1993 israeli-palestinian peace accords as having played a seminal role in nurturing many private dialogues that led directly to the fateful oslo meetings.) while the two did not agree on many points, there was cordiality between them and respectful exchanges. more to the point, time dialogue had progressed from citizens to higher-level officials, from private to public settings.
these are just a few of the highlights of almost twenty-five years of virtually unpublicized middle east peace work that i remembered as i watched on television as israeli prime minister rabin and chairman arafat reluctantly shook hands on september, 1993, on the white house lawn. i thought of the many jewish peace activists who have been vilified in the organized jewish world and of the christian peace activists who had been branded as anti-semites for working with dovish jews on this long journey for peace.
jewish peace activists have been isolated and marginalized in the jewish community. it is time to recognize time courage and the important role played by members of breira, the new jewish agenda, the jewish peace fellowship, the jewish peace lobby, the international jewish peace union, the dialogue project, friends of yesh g'vul, jewish committee on israeli-palestinian peace, americans for peace now, the american-israeli civil liberties coalition, america-israel council for israeli-palestinian peace, and the interreligious committee for peace in the middle east. all are or were groups whose peace work was either invisible or often publicly distorted, yet without them there would be no peace process.
nearly fifteen years ago i wrote an article in the progressive magazine about the dilemma faced by left and liberal american jews for speaking their conscience about the middle east. it was published in august, 1979, just days after andrew young was fired as u. s. ambassador to the united nations for holding secret peace talks in vienna with a member of the plo. within a week ad hoc jewish groups sprang up all over the country calling me to come speak to them. i said that many american jews cared about the palestinians and israelis who have long wanted to make peace with them-and that we are "excommunicated" from mainstream jewish life when we speak.
my article was about the rise and fall of breira, a short-lived attempt to foster support here for israeli doves and give them the kind of forum they had in israel. i wrote about the mccarthy-like smear campaigns used by the jewish establishment to hound breira out of existence in an effort to conceal the reality of a split in the (hardly monolithic) american jewish "community."
in 1973, breira (hebrew for "alternative") was formed, counting as members many reform and conservative rabbis and university hillel chaplains as well as young jewish professionals. they cared deeply for israel as a jewish state and a homeland, supporting those israelis in the newly formed citizens' rights movement who felt israel could and should be more flexible in negotiating with the arabs and palestinians, and should stop covertly buying up land in the territories and should announce its willingness to return land in return for recognition and peace treaties.
in 1975, israeli knesset members arie lova eliav, marcia freedman, and meir pa'il "openly advocated the right of palestinians to self-determination and the necessity of a solution to the middle east conflict that would ultimately have to include a palestinian state alongside israel," marcia freedman wrote in her memoir, exile in the promised land. it was this group and this approach breira was trying to publicize in the u.s. the well-orchestrated attacks that finally succeeded in closing down breira reached their peak early in 1977, just before breira's first national conference.
breira had become much more controversial by 1976, when it ceased to be merely a "position pamphlet" organization, and publicly defended its right to act on its principles by meeting with moderate palestinians like sabri jiryis and issam sartawi. at first the meetings were private, and breira was only one of a number of jewish groups represented.
breira had invited the late plo leader sabri jiryis to attend-as had the american friends service committee, which was holding a middle east peace conference in the same city, washington, d.c., in the same two-week period-but the palestinian leader had to address both groups by telephone from paris when the u.s. state department denied him a visa to enter the country.
this plo leader was later awarded a peace prize shared with the israeli arie lova eliav, by austrian chancellor bruno kreisky for the secret peace talks held in vienna. these talks began after eliav's resignation from the labor parry, where he gave up a prestigious slot as golda meir's secretary general-and the likely possibility of succeeding her as prime minister-because of their differences over her nonrecognition of palestinian identity.
major jewish organizations denounced breira members as plo supporters; some rabbis and other jewish professionals were threatened with dismissal. a campaign in the jewish press effectively isolated breira from the larger jewish community. the organized jewish community's attacks on breira as it sought to build support for israeli doves and dissidents, and provide them with some kind of forum here to win support, is now legend.
breira chapters around the country had difficulty getting jewish speaking engagements for eliav and other israeli peace activists sponsored by better-funded groups, such as the american friends service committee, the war resisters league, and other peace and pacifist organizations. even the jewish peace fellowship's sponsorship of israeli and american doves did not gain these speakers access to many jewish podiums except for a handful of courageous rabbis, such as everett gendler, arnold jacob wolf, and michael robinson, among others. eventually the campaign intimidated breira's financial backers, and the office in new york was closed.
similar attacks on prominent individuals who spoke, as jews, their consciences on the middle east -- for example, i. f. stone, hannah arendt, seymour melman, noam chomsky, and the philanthropist and former secretary of commerce philip klutznik, did not encourage artier american-jewish critics and dissenters to speak out on jewish matters.
in 1977 the national jewish advisory council called for a boycott of jewish participation in the quaker-organized middle east peace conference, where two prominent israeli doves -- general mattiyahu peled and arie eliav-were speaking about their meetings in paris with plo leaders. and after the conference, both speakers were kept off mainstream jewish podiums during their national tour.
in the end, the camp david accords and peace treaty between israel and egypt vindicated breira, just as the 1993 israeli-palestinian peace accords have vindicated jewish peace activists who were similarly red-baited. but like the "premature anti-fascists" of the 1930s, many are paying a price for being right too soon. and the experiences of breira made each successive american-jewish peace group increasingly more careful. the tension between caution (a practical consideration since a group needs funding to do its work) and publicity (another practical consideration since a group needs growing membership to do its work) continues to be very real in the years since the demise of breira.
the new jewish agenda arose from the ashes of breira as a combination of a new york-formed organization with a collection of old breira members-and a coalition of locally based dissident groups around the country. it brought thousands of mostly young, nonestablishment american jews into support for the israeli peace movement between 1979 and the closing of its national office in 1992 (though a number of locals stayed active). as a multi-issue organization, which the agenda founders naively felt was more resistant to mccarthy-like tactics than breira had been, the agenda spent only a portion of its resources on middle east peace work. yet throughout the 1980s they were the most prominent jewish address for sponsorship of israeli peace camp activities in the u.s., including much dialogue work and speaking tours to promote the israeli peace agenda. their most publicly visible piece of work was joint sponsorship with the american friends service committee of a national speaking tour of peace now leader mordechai bar-on and several palestinian west bank mayors, resulting in a pbs television special, "the arab and the israeli."
that project was the brainchild of a young jewish woman, gail pressburg, who led the american friends service committee's middle east program from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, when the group was attacked for its conversations with moderate palestinians. she eventually headed americans for peace now in the late 1980s and early nineties, when it became the most visible american-jewish organization supporting the israeli peace camp. pressburg was well known in the peace movement for her skillful networking of important israelis and palestinians. americans for peace now called for dialogue with time plo. they testified before congress in 1992 on behalf of linkages between a freeze on israeli settlements on the west bank as a condition for getting u.s. housing loan guarantees-a position that was anathema to organized jewish leadership-in support of the israeli peace now position of curbing the settlements in the territories.
it has never been easy for american jews to express public criticism of israeli policy without being considered anti-israel in jewish organizational life. perhaps this is why it has always been hard to raise funds, -- even from sympathetic jews -- for groups whose very purposes imply criticism of israeli policy (though all sorts of far-right and conservative groups, many critical of israel, especially of labor and its allies, never seemed to want for money-and are rarely criticized by organized jewry). however, one american-jewish organization, the new israel fund, directed all its peace efforts to support financially israeli organizations working forpeace and justice between jews and arabs.
the new israel fund's greatest triumph since its founding in 1980 was the israeli supreme court's ruling that palestinian homes could not be blown up by the military as punishment without the accused being given the right to appeal to military and civilian courts. none of the press reports of the decision mentioned the new israel fund. yet the association for civil rights in israel (acri), which was founded and almost totally supported by the new israel fund, was the organization that brought the lawsuit leading to the court's ruling. acri, modeled after the american civil liberties union, is one of the major beneficiaries of the new israel fund.
another approach to peace was launched by an american-jewish activist, tom smerling, a brilliant organizer and executive director of project nishma (hebrew for "let us listen"), which began working in 1987 to organize the quiet dissidents among american jewish leaders. it was designed to move mainstream opinion toward a territorial compromise between israel and the palestinians. project nishma members, all fairly well known jewish leaders, let members of the u.s. congress know there was indeed dissent from the mainstream on some policies.
nishma's first symbolic, public act to influence public opinion was to bring american jewish and arab leadership together -- the national association of arab americans and the american jewish congress -- for a joint press conference. at the end of the first round of peace talks between the israeli and palestinian delegations in washington in december, 1992, they jointly urged the newly elected president bill clinton not to let the peace talks die.
nishma emerged in part from the visit to the united states in 1987 of four former israeli generals who advocated territorial compromise for peace. nishma publicized the views of israelis who concluded that israel would be strengthened by pursuing a peace agreement that satisfied stringent israeli security conditions while providing for withdrawal from territory under military rule.
another american-jewish organizer who worked with jewish and arab leadership was rena bernards, founder of the jewish women's leaders consultation, which was renamed the dialogue project. a former director of the new jewish agenda (1981 - 86), she brought mainstream women leaders from the american-jewish and arab communities together for dialogue and a joint trip to the west bank. bernards' work, building upon the foundation laid by grassroots peace movements, also helped move centrist public opinion towards the peace process.
smerling's and bernards' approach was to take leaders critical of rigid israeli policies to meet palestinians in quiet, unpublicized settings, where they could gain strength from each other's positions and build a sense of mutual support. with that support they gradually became more secure and increasingly vocal about their peace sentiments.
nishma also distributed a suppressed 1988 report of tel aviv university's jaffee center for strategic studies entitled "israel, the west bank and gaza. toward a solution," which has provisions uncannily similar to the 1993 peace accords.
the jaffee report called for a ten- to fifteen-year transition stage leading to peace negotiations and comprehensive security arrangements and eventually some form of palestinian state. it also called on the u.s. to play a role in providing assurances to both parties. the major jewish organizations managed to keep knowledge of this report -- issued by a respected israeli think tank in the second year of the intifada -- from the mainstream jewish community. nishma waged a battle to publicize it by bringing israeli generals to speak in favor of it to jewish leaders, who were more than happy to listen in private meetings but never gave the report much public exposure either in public forums or the media.
another important wing of the american-jewish peace camp were the jewish women to end the occupation, who played a supporting role for israeli women peace activists, in both the u.s. and israel. through their activities, americans forged links with women in black, a major israeli effort that has been ongoing since the outbreak of the 1987 intifada. in major israeli cities, women wearing black gathered for an hour at midday on friday, just as people were leaving their offices for the sabbath, bearing signs that called for an end to military occupation. they suffered insults, threats of violence, rotten tomatoes, and obscenities, but they never ceased to be a presence. their consistent witness was replenished with american-jewish visitors who sought a moral booster shot from contact with these courageous women. in these years an international sisterhood of israeli, american-jewish, and palestinian women peace activists emerged. a month after the 1993 peace accord, all but the tel aviv women disbanded, wearing white on their last day to signify the country's official policy to (eventually) end the occupation.
another activity of this network with strong american-jewish female participation is the project between israeli jews in jerusalem and residents of the west bank communities of beit sahour and, more recently, nablus. at the height of the gulf war, the dialogue between them continued. when the israeli military restricted the palestinians from visits to israeli homes in jerusalem, the israelis -- most of them religious, former americans -- boarded big yellow buses for the trip to beit sahour. one weekend they defied military orders and stayed overnight to spend the sabbath in the village.
week after week, picked up by buses sent from beit sahour bearing west bank license plates to protect them from stone throwing, the israelis (including a regular stream of american jews and peace-movement friends) visited their beit sahour dialogue partners in a small apartment rented by the mennonites. talks took place between palestinian west bankers, israelis, and american jews.
another group of unsung heroes of the jewish peace effort were the editors:
murray polner of the late present tense (a jewish publication journalistically
comparable to the new yorker), leonard fein of moment in its earlier incarnation,
ellen stone and donny perlstein of the defunct genesis ii, and michael lerner of
tikkun, morris v. schappes of jewish currents, and arieh, lebowitz of israel
horizons, all of whom published articles about the activities and views of the
american-israeli jewish peace camp.
these publications -- each focusing on different aspects of the movement and reflecting widely varying editorial slants -- gave readers a fairly good understanding of this unpublicized peace work generally, genesis ii grew out of the 1970s jewish student movement, moment was the voice of the friends of peace now, and present tense reflected an international jewish peace perspective. by the time of the 1993 peace accord, tikkun, jewish currents and israel horizons were the only magazines still publishing articles supporting the israeli peace camp.
by 1993, the bulk of detailed information about the ongoing work of the multitude of american-jewish peace groups was disseminated primarily through newsletters of dovish organizations (plus a new privately funded newsletter, ps: the intelligent guide to jewish affairs) most of whom had funds insufficient for mass mailings to reach wider audiences.
the success of the peace process requires all who have worked for middle east peace, the many activists without whose work this accord could not have happened, to claim recognition for their roles in changing the political environment. our peace movement created the space, support, and legitimacy for dialogue to take place when it was risky, dangerous, and sometimes seemingly not possible.
people debate whether earlier visibility of this peace movement would have brought an accord sooner, while hawks argue that without the financial bankruptcy of the plo (loss of funding from both the soviet union and the oil-producing arab countries), arafat would not have agreed to recognize israel on these terms. what cannot be disputed, however, is the necessity for citizens to lay the groundwork for public opinion at all levels in advance of political settlements. if these political circumstances had emerged with no peace movement in place, the leaders would not have been able to talk with each other or to proceed so quickly to an accord.
"the people process is one designed to change the political environment so the political process can record and define the change," harold saunders, a former under-secretary of state for near eastern affairs, said at professor kelman's harvard university seminar in 1989, when sha'ath and dayan first met each other. "nongovernmental people are freer to be creative to develop the vision of a new relationship, which makes the next step possible-and in this way they advance the peace process," he said, recognizing that he was witnessing a historic occasion on the road to peace.
our job now is to monitor that walk, that arduous path to peace. we must ensure that the work of peacemakers is credited so they are officially included in the process. their visibility, views, and efforts are essential to keep the peace process on the straight road that heads to a true peace. we have the rare opportunity to hold the leaders accountable. as the only agents whose commitment to this peace is unassailable, participants in the peace movement must assert their roles as truly honest brokers.
article list
"a letter to a deportee", the jerusalem post, by dalia landau
"the challenge of grass-roots peace-making in israel/palestine: the example of open house", the newsletter of the international interfaith centre at oxford, by peter riddell
"open house: a center of healing and hope", holy land magazine
articles by yehezkel landau
"a holistic peace process for the middle east", connections, by yehezkel landau"rehumanizing the 'enemy' and confronting ourselves: challenges for educators in an era of peace", presented at the "palestinians and israelis: educating about each other in the era of peace" seminar, by yehezkel landau
peacebuilding in israel/palestine: a 25 year retrospective by yehezkel landau (this is a .pdf file)
"blessing both jew and palestinian: a religious zionist view", the christian century, by yehezkel landau
"sharing jerusalem: the spiritual and political challenges", service international de documéntation judéo-chrétienne, by yehezkel landau
"the first covenant was sealed with the rainbow. does hope for interfaith harmony begin there?", catholic new times, by yehezkel landau
"website: cincinnati's open house", for a change, by robert webb
"little house in israel helping young arabs, jews shed biases", the indianapolis star, by gregory weaver"the letter to bashir", new outlook, by rene backmann
"missing ingredient", the other side, by yehezkel landau
"a match made in ramlah", the jerusalem report, by yossi klein halevi"compromised land?", the war cry
"an islam much forgotten", the new york times, by yossi klein halevi"a citizen of jerusalem: yossi klein halevi explores interfaith relations in his new book", the jewish journal of greater los angeles, by ruth andrew ellenson
"understanding the palestinians: frustrations of a forgotten people", the chicago tribune, by carolyn toll
"american jews and the middle east dilemma: a struggle waged behind the scenes", the progressive, by carolyn toll
"the road to middle east peace", by carolyn toll oppenheim, "challenge of shalom," edited by naomi goodman and murray polner, new society publishers.
"they stayed on in algeria when the 'wolves' came", the international herald tribune, by john kiser
"panel says u.s. mideast peace efforts are vital", the morris county, nj daily record, by darran a. simon"pilgrim for peace", the daily hampshire gazette, by marty dobrow
"islam and the challenge of interfaith activism", eds occasional papers, by iza r. hussin
"mideast peace quest topic of talk", the daily hampshire gazette, by kathleen mellen
"jews, arabs working to promote peace", the berkshire eagle, by derek gentile"we didn't become enemies", the jewish week, by stewart ain
"teenage peacemakers from israel present tuesday program at island hebrew center", vineyard gazette"teens seek to end mideast violence", vineyard gazette, by chris burrell
"peace begins at home: the work of friends of open house", the women's times, by nicki wilson
"a tree grows in ramle," by kevin perrottathe word among us
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