Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

When spring arrives in Jerusalem, daffodils and other wild flowers bloom. Of the images of spring this year was that of a young boy collecting daffodils near the French Consulate in West Jerusalem. When I greeted him and asked for his name, it turned out that he was from an Arab Palestinian family living in the Old City of Jerusalem. With his eyes sparkling with happiness as he collected one daffodil after another from between stones and rocks I wanted to know the purpose of his precious collection. 'Oh, these flowers are for my mother, she loves flowers.' I was overwhelmed by this 10-year old's attachment to his mother and his willingness to walk from his home in the old town at a rather late afternoon hour to enterprise a motherly daffodil collection.

I was reminded of this young boy when the other day I visited a demolished, Palestinian home on the Mount of Olives that the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem claimed was built illegally. The home housed two families of more than 15 members together.

As I approached the head of the household and shook hands with him, an 8-year old boy made his way to me amidst a cluster of older people, shook hands and told me in a spontaneous manner: 'today is my birthday!' A wave of electricity went through me as I looked at his smiling face and wished that I had brought a birthday cake with me, in spite of the sad occasion of his family's home having been destroyed.

These two boys symbolize the future and also the value given to the family in Palestinian society and culture. In the final analysis the Palestinian family remains the bastion which nourishes and strengthens, even when the political, economic and other ills appear to be insurmountable.

With politics and its process I feel in a void these days and therefore prefer to keep my silence.

One of my teachers in high school diagnosed me once as a hopeless case of an addicted pessimist. But it has nothing to do with pessimism but rather with the feeling that in the final analysis our Palestinian people and we ourselves as individuals and families will pay for whatever 'progress' happens in the political process.

If there is no progress, we will continue to pay and the world will continue talking about the overall contours of the political process and the difficulties it encounters and how to overcome them. Meanwhile our difficulties as families and communities will be swept under the excuse that all is permitted to the Israelis to ensure their security. This may sound surrealistic and it is: we are damned if there is a peace process and we are damned if there is not!

I am not discounting the good intentions and efforts of world politicians in advancing the political process between us and the Israelis, but my gut-level reaction is that four years from now we will still be in the same place, if not worse.

I honestly hope that I am absolutely mistaken and my arguments would be brushed away as those of a naïve know-nothing person.

However, I am afraid that too many more Springs will pass and too many homes will be destroyed in Jerusalem before the daffodil collections of young Palestinian boys will adorn family homes and bring joy to mothers in a true environment of peace.

For a conference organized by Saint Egidio Society in Rome on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 under the title “The Value of Christian Churches in the Middle East: A Christian Muslim Discussion”, I was asked to make a 10-minute presentation on the topic ‘A Window on the World.’ I got to my pc and printed out the last four or five articles that I have written over a number of years on Christians in Palestine and in the Arab World. I was debating myself on whether to base my presentation on personal experiences and recollections or to be more academic, and usually boring, by citing statistics, institutions, schools, printing presses, community societies, clinics and other varied contributions of the Churches in Palestine and elsewhere in the region since the Middle of the 19th Century and even earlier. Local Christians, indigenous to the Palestinian and Arab settings, usually root themselves, their families, communities and churches in the early Church and like to insist that Jerusalem was and remains, as they wish it to be, the “Mother Church.” In a recent talk I have given to a group of priests from the Philippines visiting the Holy Land, I referred to the physical limitations of the city of Jerusalem and thanked the divine wisdom for Rome’s hospitality to the Church otherwise, I asked my group of priests, how would we have dealt with the traffic if Jerusalem would have become the seat of St. Peter’s successors and Jewish, Christian and Muslim holidays and feasts would have coincided with each other with millions of visitors to the Holy City? The Almighty has thankfully taken care of the anticipated traffic and population congestion in Jerusalem but much more work needs to be done on the human dimension in the city as elsewhere in the Middle East.

So what kind of a Window on the World would I present to the distinguished group of Christians and Muslims that will gather to exchange notes and reflections? Would I tell them the stories of growing up in Jerusalem with the images of a child of a Palestinian Christian refugee family of ten being hosted in two rooms by the Franciscans or better would I tell them of the experiences of school at the Ecole des Freres at New Gate with Christian and Muslim students, mostly refugees, sitting next to each other and getting a quality education in languages and other subjects. Or much better yet to share with them the experiences of the young boy who walked the streets of Jerusalem and heard prayers and saw pilgrims of a variety of countries and of both Muslim and Christian faith? Or would I impress them with the view from the two-room home looking unto the Al Haram Al Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, and the Mount of Olives and the voices and sounds of bells, muezzins and other religious intonations mixing with each other and providing a semblance of harmony and peace?

But the personal, regardless of how significant it is for the individual, remains rooted in the context or environment. With the impression that Jerusalem placed on me as a young boy, there was also an impression that Jerusalem is a troubled place; a place that is yet to evolve into something else. As I grew up, the academic courses, the thousands of articles, books, lectures and conferences on the city; its past, future and the unspeakable prospects presented by so many sides of interested and noninterested groups made me realize even more that Jerusalem indeed is a troubled place and not the place of hope and salvation that Christians, Jews and Muslims see and seek.

Palestinian Christians or Christians of the Holy Land, comprising Jordan, Israel and Palestine, are grouped in more than 15 churches and in their kaleidoscopic representation of Christianity; they reflect the challenges and hopes. But, as the Heads of Churches have indicated in their November 1994 declaration on Jerusalem, the city is the place of roots and the aspiration for a future of peace, harmony, free access and respect for religious freedom and practice. History of Christianity is recognized by the declaration of the Heads of Churches side by side with the history of Judaism and Islam. What is asked for Christians, pilgrims and citizens alike, is also asked for Jews and Muslims. The vision motivating the declaration is clearly a religious vision but it is also aware of the religious, historical, national and political complexities that impact the present realities of the city and its inhabitants. But these complexities are not simply peculiar to Jerusalem as they are impacting the whole of the Middle East and making the prospects for the future quite bleak, to say the least.

While at every juncture of the long history of conflict in the Middle East, blame is put on this side or that for the absence of peace, it is clear that the exercise of basic rights whether religious, civil, political or just human is dependent on an environment of peace. With no peace in the city and the region, there is no clear vision of a different future for Jerusalem or the region. Crystallizing the clear vision is the responsibility of everyone and in particular the spiritual and religious leaders on all sides. The tragedies that befell our Palestinian people in Gaza recently and the fear, injury and stress caused to Israeli citizens because of the shelling of rockets are a reflection of the tragedy in which all of us live at present. It appears that at present so many people in the Middle East but especially in Palestine and Israel have turned their backs to each other and find it normal to opt for confrontation rather than compromise. The Churches and the faithful cannot be comfortable with such a situation, irrespective of the partisan feelings and emotions that are continuously generated with new rounds of conflict and war. At the moment, political developments do not bode well for the future of peace in the region. On the contrary we may be in a new cycle of vicious violence and counter violence that will lead all of us into the abyss of despair and hopelessness.

The Churches with their Window on the World must work and act to touch the pain of all people in Jerusalem and the region and to actively engage in peace efforts, either through influencing politicians or through mobilizing their own faithful to work for a different future. This cannot be done without the involvement of all in the region: I and other Palestinian and Arab Christians are often perceived as too controversial, or too marginal and hence unimportant, to be involved in peace work and intellectual exchange as we like to bring out the sensitive issues, the injustices committed against our people, the historic tragedy of the disintegration of Palestinian society as a cost to the establishment of the State of Israel and the ingathering of the Jewish exiles. Often people who want to work for peace, particularly in the West, seek unconditional forgiveness on all sides but especially on the Christian and Arab sides. For whatever reason, these well intentioned Western people believe that if the Arabs show willingness to forgive and to make peace then the Israelis will be forthcoming. But there are also many counter arguments and examples that prove when Arabs are more forthcoming the Israelis become less willing to compromise. But this is not the issue and for fear that I would lose the intended conclusion in this short presentation, I would go back to the major argument that PEACE is the essential task of Middle East Churches and their faithful as well as of Judaism and Islam and their faithful. Accordingly, for all of us who seek the Peace of Jerusalem and the region, we have to work together to formulate a comprehensive framework of Peace:

First, each religious community is entitled to continue to live in the dignity and pride of its own religious tradition and history and to attend to its own holy places, without interference from any outside source. This applies to all countries of the region.

Second, each national community feels that it is secure in its territory in terms of the sovereignty that guarantees the fulfillment of basic needs of political community life and continuity with acknowledgement of mutual rights and obligations. This is specifically applicable to Palestine and Israel.

Third, the wounds inflicted on the parties to the conflict must be recognized and addressed. This could be most difficult but we cannot recognize the pain of one party to the exclusion of the other. Pain is pain, regardless of who is feeling it.

Fourth, while recognizing the pain of the conflicting parties, we should work to steer away from the “victim” mentality. So many of us in the region have grown accustomed to presenting ourselves as victims. Unfortunately, some feel comfortable with this victim mentality and keep perpetuating it for various reasons. We need to do all to get away from this mentality and to overcome it through work of healing and eventual reconciliation.

Fifth, we must be very careful not to abuse our religious traditions and teachings. It is disheartening and saddening when transgressions against neighbors are justified by religious leaders of different faith communities in the name of religion. What makes these “religiously” based justifications even more reprehensible is the fact that some of those religious leaders participating in inter group and inter faith encounters are the ones who are making these statements. It is the obligation of all to remind all of expected standards and obligations: we cannot be for dialogue here and for justification of war and conflict there!

Sixth, the Churches of the Middle East with all their heritage of caritative, social, educational and religious work done in harmony with their neighbors and for the purpose of community and society building should be courageous to speak up and work for the sake of peace and be uncompromising on this. Without peace and harmony among the different religious and national groups, there will be no future in the Middle East irrespective of victor or loser in intermittent wars and battles.

Our Window on the World as Churches of the Middle East is a window that has so many contrasting tales; sad and happy experiences; marginal tendencies and openness to others; letdowns and hopeful expectations. While we feel our limitations we also can value our potential. But without action and without engagement, this potential can never be accomplished. It is at this particular juncture that much is demanded from Christians and Churches in the Middle East so as their Window on the World would influence as well the Window of the World of their Muslim and other neighbors.

I found myself extremely frustrated and emotionally moved when someone told me that for some groups in certain countries there was discomfort to news reports and briefings describing the bombs falling on Gaza as “Israeli bombs”. As incredible as this may sound, this was mentioned in a very respected and august company by a media specialist. I asked my interlocutor how to best describe these bombs: bombs from up there or bombs manufactured in the USA or any other country of origin? He thought I was not serious but in reality I was desperate to understand the logic behind raising such an apparently senseless and to me immoral question. Possibly the objection of these groups to the use of “Israeli bombs” had to deal with its possible undertone of anti-semitism for certainly the Israeli pilots were only an instrument to deliver these bombs to innocent children and other civilians as they did not manufacture the bombs themselves. Another reason for the objection of these groups could be that their back donors, honest citizens in civilized and cultured countries, would have a problem with describing bombs as being Israeli. To ease the conscience of leaders of these groups and their back donors, I am asking them to please stick to their conscience, keep their money and go spend it in a way that would not pose a moral and ethical dilemma to them. We, Palestinians, are absolutely opposed to anyone of them not being able to sleep soundly overnight because of the wrong description of the bombs that fell down on our people in Gaza.

In order to determine how best to describe the bombs that fell down on Gaza, I searched the internet for stories from Jerusalem Post and Reuters, among other media outlets, to see how some religious Jewish leaders could enlighten us on this. The chief rabbi of the city of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu in Northern Israel was emphatic about the need to kill as many Palestinians in order to get them to stop launching rockets: "if they don't stop after we kill 100 then we must kill a thousand and if they do not stop after 1000 then we must kill 10,000. if they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop." Rabbi Eliyahu quoted from the Psalms: "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them." (Israel.Jpost.Com, January 25, 2009 at 22:14.) Would this position be a point against referring to the bombs as “Israeli bombs” and instead refer to them as bombs from up there?

Rabbi Eliyahu’s father is former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu who was quoted himself as saying in a letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings. According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. The former Chief Rabbi opposed a ground troop incursion, according to his Rabbi son, because it would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life. (Israel.Jpost.Com, January 25, 2009 at 22:14.) Would this be an additional arguing point for not calling the bombs “Israeli bombs” and calling them bombs from up there?

An Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, called on Monday for the dismissal of the chief military rabbi, Brigadier-General Avichai Rontzki, saying he had authorized a booklet, written by a civilian rabbi who advocates Jewish settlement in the West Bank that told soldiers to show no mercy because they were fighting a "cruel enemy" and "murderers". (Reuters, January 28, 2009.) Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, citing Maimonides (1135-1204), the Jewish philosopher and legalist, urged soldiers to "trust in God and know that war is being waged for the sanctification of His name... and not to fear. [The soldier] should not think at this time of his wife or of his children or of his mother and father." Meanwhile, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar called the military campaign in Gaza "a holy mission that is being waged in the name of the entire Jewish people." Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu, quoted above, has recorded a message to soldiers on MP3s distributed freely to Israeli soldiers as compliment of a donor or group of donors by the Jewish Consciousness Field (JCF) which is a division of the Israeli army Rabbinate. "Our intention is to uplift soldiers' spirits," said Eliyahu, who likened Hamas to Haman in the biblical story of Ester and to the Nazis. In addition to the MP3s, the JCF also distributed to IDF rabbis in the field in Gaza a pamphlet entitled "Jewish Consciousness Emphases for Cast Lead." In the pamphlet, the IDF rabbis are addressed as "Anointed Priests of War." In the introduction, Shmuel Yurman, an officer in the JCF, defines the purpose of the pamphlet: “This is the hour to strengthen our fighters in this heavenly commanded war [milchemet mitzva] that they have the merit to wage. Each of you [rabbis] has the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the IDF battle spirit.” (Israel. Jpost.Com, January 8, 2009 at 11:14.)

Would all these religious enlightenments further reinforce the position of these groups that are calling for not using the term “Israeli bombs?” Or should these groups engage in an intense morally and ethically driven effort to help explain the position of these Jewish religious leaders as they search for a new descriptive term for the bombs that fell on Gaza and its population during the 22-day war?

Israeli politics with Arab neighbors have always been weighed by the use of force. Israel has once again decided that in order to accomplish what could have been accomplished by negotiation and willingness to compromise; force would be the best solution. Apparently, the objective of the use of force this time is to eliminate the threat posed by rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. But to accomplish this goal Israel is also intent to deal a deadly blow to the overall infrastructure, both human and material of the Gaza Strip, irrespective of the damage inflicted and the costs to innocent civilians, families and communities as a result of the indiscriminate air power, naval bombardments and shelling. The end objective, accordingly, cannot be accomplished without reducing Gaza to rubbles and holding its people captive. This supposedly would further Israel’s political goal of weakening Hamas and rendering its authority and ability to govern questionable.

Observers of the Palestinian, Arab and indeed of the international scene speak of an overwhelming sympathy and support to the people in Gaza and to the Hamas movement. This sympathy, however, translates itself to no more than the needed humanitarian help that at the moment is not effective since the ground war on Gaza has begun and since the air strikes of the last 9 days have made it almost impossible for people to move around freely. Accordingly, the distribution system of food, medical and other essential commodities has been severely hampered. This may be intentional and policy guided by Israel as it aims to drive the Palestinian people of Gaza to their limits with the hope that this would serve the overall Israeli policy of showing that a weakened Hamas cannot cope with the emergent needs of the population.

The tragedy in what is happening in Gaza is not restricted to Israel’s use of force as the preferred course of action by the electioneering politicians and their military cohorts. This tragedy unfortunately is also shared by the Arab world with its political divisions and by the World community with its inaction. In the Arab world, the Palestinian issue has become a political tug of war and those rulers who want to climb on the bandwagon have been doing so to serve their own narrow interests often in collision with regional and foreign powers, whose policies are not particularly favorable to our Palestinian people. We have been at pain with the political division in Palestine and yet the call for comprehensive Palestinian dialogue in Cairo has been torpedoed in part by considerations that are not in our interest. If the Arab world were to insist on Palestinian Unity and worked for it as it should have diligently, we would have had one more reason against Israel’s pretexts for attacking Gaza. This is not the place to blame but there is apparent frustration among all Arabs and Palestinians not simply with the inaction of Arab rulers in the face of the Israeli war on Gaza but more so with the missed opportunities that these same Arab rulers have lost in order to bring Palestinians together as they took sides between opposing Palestinian factions and parties, thus exacerbating the divisions instead of healing them. Some Arab analysts have argued that it is better to wait on the Palestinian Unity issue after President-Elect Obama takes office in January 2009 and after the Israeli elections in February 2009. The same argument unfortunately has also been made on promoting a new truce with Israel. Our people under siege in Gaza and under continuing fierce Israeli control and occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem cannot wait. Arab politics needs to become proactive and not reactive and to assert Arab interests not with apologetics but with concrete and practical steps that force Israel, Western powers and the world to weigh the Arab world more seriously.

The Western Powers have failed us, in spite of the fact that the French President has shown much more acumen and movement than some of the rulers in the region, with the clear exception of Turkey and its Prime Minister and other officials. The inability of the UN Security Council to come up with a plan to end the Israeli war on Gaza is symptomatic of the delaying tactics, usually employed by the US, in order to enable Israel to finish its work on the ground. Meanwhile, if the Gaza situation has happened anywhere else, the US would be foremost on insisting on an immediate ceasefire, Georgia being the most recent example. The position of the West and its governments, in general, reflects quite poorly on the pretense often made of subscription to universal human values and the adoption of moral and ethical positions, especially in situations of war and conflict. The mass demonstrations across the globe and in Western countries and Capitals show that the decency of ordinary people in expressing their indignation and in calling for an end to the war remains to be matched by their government’s actions and deeds.

We Palestinians are at a crucial juncture once again. It is absolutely clear that we need to come together since a house divided cannot withstand the storm nor be able to rehabilitate and reconstruct. Individual or factional agendas should be put aside as we should opt for a national agenda that would bring all of us together. The wounds of Gaza are the wounds of all Palestine and we need together to tend to these wounds as we call on all decent people and powers to do their utmost to stop the war. If Israel and its allies have their way, we will soon be forced to give up control of the Gaza Strip and possibly the West Bank in order to further the control over the population and to make Israel the undisputable Lord of the Land. Besides, it would help Israel greatly if in the process hundreds of thousands of our Palestinian people emigrate, leave or simply disappear or are transferred. The micro politics that has characterized Palestinian politics since the January 2006 elections should change to macro politics. We should adopt a clear course and we should insist that all Palestinian factions and political groups shed their narrow interests and benefits from the current status quo and come together in order to chart this course and to deal with the human, political, social and economic after effects of the Israeli war on Gaza. The rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip and its reconstruction necessitates equally the rehabilitation of Palestinian politics and its regeneration to serve the interest of our people. The challenge is how to get the world with us and to confront the difficult future that lies ahead in 2009 and perhaps for years to come. The more pressing challenge is to stop the Israeli carnage and to bring the war to an immediate stop. But we should never forget what awaits us all in terms of unification, reconstruction and molding a vision for the future of our Palestine.