Thanks to Doris Bittar
(DBittar@ucsd.edu) in the San Diego Dialogue community, here are todays *two*
articles about how Palestinian-Jewish relationships are coming alive
there.
"A little bit of light emerges out of the current
nightmare," Doris says.
- - - - -
And across the continent in Brooklyn, New York
hundreds are on a waiting list for Dialogue while leadership is
developed. Hear an example of their "directed Dialogue" at:
http://www.dialogueproject.org
- - - - -
So, today, Friday, April 19, 2002, read:
1. TALKING IT OUT: Group Dialogues Aim to Pave a
Hopeful Path to Israeli-Palestinian Peace
2. THEY SPEAK FROM A PERSONAL PAIN
======== 1 =========
Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune -- Friday, April 19, 2002
TALKING IT OUT
Group Dialogues Aim to Pave a Hopeful Path to Israeli-Palestinian Peace
By Gil Griffin
STAFF WRITER
Long past the evening's initial warmth and fuzziness,
hours after the zaatar, lentils and Merlot had been eagerly shared, came the
hard part.
The group of 12 Palestinian Christians, a Palestinian
Muslim and Jews who recently gathered at Ibrahim and Muna Dayeh's El Cajon home
were sharing their pain.
"Israel is in danger of existing," said
Jewish group member Randy Sturman, "Israelis are surrounded by enemies,
and they're scared to death."
Fadia Odeh, a Palestinian Christian passionately
responded: "No one is against Israel's existence. Take what you have
and leave the other part for someone else. The (Palestinian) people are
living with no water and no electricity. The (Israeli) soldiers are
robbing people's houses."
This dialogue group was started two years ago by Doris
Bittar and James Rauch, an interfaith North Park couple. It is one of
several organized, grass-roots Jewish-Palestinian dialogue circles in San Diego
County, whose members aim to educate each other and promote peace.
Throughout the session at the Dayeh home, hope for
harmony reigned despite the rising death toll on both sides incurred by the
daily volley of military assaults and suicide bombings.
"I'm the eternal optimist," said Muna Dayeh,
a Palestinian Christian who was born in Jerusalem and spent her infancy in
Ramallah before immigrating with her parents to the United States.
"Otherwise I wouldn't be here."
Heated debates
Bittar and Rauch lead two other dialogue groups and
have 70 individuals on waiting lists.
"We couldn't stand reading the paper and feeling
like we weren't doing anything about it," said Bittar, an Arab Christian
who was born in Iraq and whose parents are Palestinian and Lebanese.
She met her husband, Rauch who is Jewish while the two
attended the same high school in a New York City suburb. Still, there are
heated debates.
"We wanted to reach the mainstreams of both
communities," Bittar said.
"They are very ignorant of each other's
narratives. We agree there should be two states, with mutual
security. But we're being held hostage there by extremists on both
sides."
The group was united in labeling Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon "a thug" and said the Palestinian suicide
bombers were resorting to "extreme" measures to air their
grievances. It remains divided, though, on past atrocities committed by
Israelis and Palestinians.
"At first, there was a tendency to get hung up on
history," Rauch said.
"We've agreed to disagree.
Intense reactions
In public, the dialogue group takes a united front on
its stand for peace. At a recent peace rally it organized at the
Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan, members of the group carried Israeli,
Palestinian and American flags and agreed not to use the words
"occupation" and "terrorism" in the banners they carried.
But at the dialogues, when the barriers come down,
these words can spark intense reactions.
"When the French resisted Nazi occupation, they
weren't called terrorists," Ibrahim Dayeh said, his voice rising.
"What is the right of people to resist
occupation? Occupation is terrorism. Attacking with Apache helicopters
and F-16s and demolition of houses is also terrorism. We have to condemn
all violence."
But Nasser Palestinian Muslim, said he saw differences
in the violence perpetrated by the groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
"What Hamas does is despicable, inhumane terrorism,"
said Barghouti, an electrical engineer who has relatives in both Ramallah and
Jordan. I understand the anger, but it's stupid to blow up a hotel.
"Hezbollah has attacked military targets."
Barghouti continued, describing as
"fascistic" the behavior of Israeli police subduing Jewish
demonstrators opposed to Israel's military actions in Palestine.
When he heard that, Dick Friedman professor of Bible
and Judaic studies at the University of California San Diego immediately
objected.
"Words like 'fascistic' and 'racist' have been
hit-words," Friedman said. "We can't demonize the Jewish
state. I have trouble distinguishing between Hamas and Hezbollah.
Sturman, a lecturer in the University of California
San Diego's anthropology department, reiterated Israel's deep concern for
security.
"Even if Israel pulled out, the suicide bombings
wouldn't stop," said Sturman, who is married to Friedman.
"They've been going on every day."
Rauch and Odeh, who attended with her husband, Ty,
also had a spirited exchange. Rauch recalled his grief after learning
that a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 28 people and wounded 140 more at a
hotel in the Israeli city of Netanya, Seder, the traditional Passover meal.
"That pained me more than any other Palestinian
action against Israel in my lifetime," Rauch said. I felt stabbed in
the back. The Palestinians were sticking it to the Israelis in a deep
way."
To which Odeh interjected: "They asked for
it."
Moments later, she explained.
"I was watching al-Jazeera Qatar-based, Arabic
television network) and saw a Palestinian father trying to find his son in a
mass grave," Odeh said, her voice rising and cracking. "I was
numb."
But Odeh also said the suicide bombings have outraged
her.
"We weren't raised to strap ourselves with bombs
and kill people," she said. "We were raised to be gracious to
each other and love each other."
After almost six hours, when this dialogue reached its
end, tension yielded to tranquillity. There were hugs, handshakes and
smiles and agreements to stay in touch until the next meeting.
And there was gratitude for the ability to freely seek
peace.
"There was a time when people getting together
like this (in Israel and Palestine) would've been killed because they would've
be seen by others as traitors," Muna Dayeh said.
"Maybe this can be the beginning of
something."
======= 2 ========
Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune -- Friday, April 19, 2002
THEY SPEAK FROM A PERSONAL PAIN
By Gil Griffin
STAFF WRITER
For two Jewish-Palestinian dialogue members, the pain
inflicted by the conflict in the Middle East is deeply personal.
Five years ago, Miko Peled's 13-year-old niece was
killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber while visiting a Jerusalem coffee
shop. His mother and two sisters in Jerusalem fear more random attacks.
"The bombing was insane," said Peled, a
martial arts instructor who lives in Coronado. "Once that happens,
you cross a point of no return. I'm still furious. But the bombers
are just as much victims as the people they kill. I don't see
Palestinians as the enemy."
Two weeks ago, the home of Muna Dayeh's aunt and two
cousins was invaded and ransacked by Israeli soldiers who held them at gunpoint.
Every day since the Israeli military began an offensive into Palestinian
Authority lands in late March, the routine rumblings of tanks on their street
frighten them.
These days when Peled and Dayeh get overseas phone
calls from relatives, they fear the worst.
"I used to call home twice a week, but now it's
twice a day," said Peled, who wears a lapel pin with Israeli and
Palestinian flags. Peled's father, Matti, was a general in the 1967
Six-Day War, then founded a group called the Council For Israeli-Palestinian
Peace.
"There is no normalcy. My family is very
depressed. Every time they want to go out anywhere, it's a risk."
For Dayeh's family, even the inside of their home has
been unsafe. Dayeh's cousin who, like her aunt and her two daughters
didn't want to be identified by their last names in this story, fearing
reprisals called and told her about the episode with the soldiers.
"A group of 15 banged on the metal gate outside
and demanded in Arabic that they open the door," Dayeh said.
"Then one led my cousin, Suha, at gunpoint into
the house and questioned her if there were any men there.
Dayeh said the soldiers locked the three women in a
downstairs bedroom, only allowing them out to use the bathroom. She said
the women were denied food and water during the day the soldiers stayed.
The next morning, after the soldiers released the
three, they found their upholstered furniture ripped, kitchen trashed and money
and jewelry missing, Dayeh said. This horror, Dayeh said, is simply the
latest her family has suffered. Her father and uncles in Bethlehem lost
their land and her mother and aunt were shot by Israeli snipers. Her
grandmother, Dayeh said, died in a refugee camp.
"How can people say we have no right to fight for
our freedom, when we're being terrorized?" Dayeh said. "I'm not
against Jews and Judaism. I'm hoping that through dialogue we can educate
Jews and non-Jews about the situation."
For information on joining a dialogue group, contact Caroline Nathan of the
Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue Steering Committee at (858) 485-7204.