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By Mark Anderson
UNDERSTANDING THE PLIGHT of the Palestinians, amid their complex political circumstances and daily tragedies, leads to one essential question: Should U.S. monetary aid to Israel be continued?
The mention of this by AFP in a question to panelists in Chicago at the May 23-25 Palestinian-American National Conference (PANC) generated a considerable response. Rev. Donald E.Wagner, Middle Eastern Studies director at nearby North Park University, replied that cutting foreign aid is desirable but might have to be a gradual process. But the concept of pursuing such a cut harmonized with many panelists, since the billions of tax dollars the U.S. gives to Israel every year enables the Israeli military to enforce onerous apartheid policies against the Palestinians.
About 1,000 people came to hear a series of speakers and panel discussions at the conference. Clearly, the American citizens of Palestinian ancestry who organized it did not get together just to reflect on the gulag-like conditions of their homeland, attributed to what they describe as Israel’s brutal occupation of their country. They are upset over the Israeli army’s cold, calculating enforcement measures, including extreme limits on Palestinian travel by means of countless checkpoints that isolate villages and cut them into sections; extended curfews in which wanderers are shot on sight; armed raids that leave men, women and children dead or wounded without medical care; homes invasions by troops who even burrow through stone walls to enter; constant surveillance, accompanied by arrests and interrogations, and the bulldozing of homes.
Some said Orwell’s 1984 falls short of describing life in Palestine. Indeed, filmmaker/author Anna Baltzer, a young Jewish-American who spoke at the conference, spent considerable time in Palestine and can attest to the extreme psychological, physical and spiritual agony of the unarmed local population in dealing with the Israeli army and armed citizen-partisans of the Israeli state.
Her film Life in Occupied Palestine is a sharp contrast with the version the major media peddles.
Palestinian-Americans convened the conference to observe the 60th anniversary of al Nakba (“the catastrophe”), referring to May of 1948 when the Israeli state came into existence and more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed in raids attributed to armed units of the budding state out on ethnic cleansing expeditions. Yet behind the bleak reality, a cautious optimism permeated the conference. These Palestinian-Americans are activists. Some are running for political office to pursue policy changes here, in order to free their long-captive countrymen “over
there.”
One panelist said, “If we win, we all win—if we lose, God forbid, we all lose.” In this discussion, moderated by Dr. Hesham Tillawi, a Palestinian-American television producer and radio host, this same panelist stated that South Africa’s “apartheid” system was “more benign” than the system imposed by the Israelis.
Tillawi said his Current Issues TV program on the situation in Palestine—where the people, before 1948, lived in relative harmony, peace and prosperity—was shown on the large British television network “Bridges TV” for six months in 2005. But it was pulled due to pressure from cable TV companies, right as the show was nearing likely syndication. However, Tallawi’s show still reaches satellite TV subscribers in North and South America, Europe and North Africa. It’s also on Cox Cable in Louisiana. On the Republic Broadcasting Network (republicbroadcasting.org) his show is Current Issues Radio.
In a separate discussion, Dr.Wagner, a Presbyterian, said that a growing number of American Christians and others are starting to recognize what’s going on in Palestine. He stressed that progressive Jews who disagree with the Zionist-statist policies of Israel, along with sympathetic mainline Christians, need to have more contact and involvement with Arab-Americans, so everyone’s worldview can be shifted the right direction.
Wagner said such a change happened to him. He was raised in a “fundamentalist” Christian setting and taught that Israel could do little wrong. But over the years, as he rebelled and attended conferences about Palestine, he began to understand their perspective that Israel is a state implanted where Palestine once thrived, and that those Palestinians who weren’t killed or driven out of the country were marginalized to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many now live in Jordan, Syria and other nearby nations, as well as overseas. Wagner said foreign aid to Israel should be “chipped away.”
In his view, there also is a need for humanitarian relief for the Palestinians. He added that the pro-Zionist Rev. John Hagee, a controversial evangelical from San Antonio, who has made a fortune by literally worshipping Israel, is “making a fool of himself ” and provides “a window of opportunity” for those who challenge the Zionist mindset in America.
“We need a long-term 
But the pro-Zionist neo-conservatives in America (a league of false conservatives with a mindset of war, imperialism and conquest rooted in a species of Communism) are determined to close such windows of opportunity; they have done so before, so the time for Palestinians to act is now, as Wagner and the other panelists agreed during a lengthy May 24 discussion.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, on the panel with Wagner, said that the meaning of Al-Nakba has not been effectively communicated to Americans, including opinion-makers and leaders.
“Irrespective of who’s in power, Palestinians have to stick together,” he said, adding that “the committee-of-one mindset . . . the mindset of success,” is needed. While he’s astounded by how open-minded, yet uninformed, many Americans are about the Palestinians, he feels they can be reached with the facts. He added: “America has been unjust to the Palestinians for a long time and therefore has been unjust to itself.
”When that subsides, he said, a solution will come that also will help the Israelis “to be just.”
Awad summarized: “Educate, advocate, legislate, participate,” adding that the PANC needs a headquarters in Washington D.C. “This conference should be in D.C.,” he said.
Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said the very memory of Palestine and its culture could be erased by the Israeli occupation: “If the stories aren’t told, the poetry isn’t read and the art isn’t
seen, how will Palestine’s story live?” As he sees it, thousands of young men shaking their hands in the air in Gaza, and young suicide bombers, are not the images to remember.
Zogby declared that Arab-Americans “need a presidential candidate in 2008,” adding: “Will America be true to its Constitution?”
AFP mentioned Ron Paul (R-Tex.) in a question on foreign aid because Paul is the only major-party presidential candidate who says such aid should be cut.
Chicago area resident Khairi Shaddid, a Palestinian-American, told AFP he is an active supporter of Paul and knows of others who share his view. Democratic candidate Barack Obama also was mentioned, both favorably and unfavorably.
While saying that “politics is not about who whines the loudest, but who works the hardest,” Zogby named some influential strengths of Arab-Americans that need to be used effectively, including: “We have more Ph.D’s per capita than any other ethnic group in America.”
According to Abe Hayeem, peace activist and founding member of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine, the land in Palestine was taken over with help from the Jewish National Fund, which he claimed aided in razing villages and forcing the upheaval of hundreds of thousands of people to “erase the memory of the Palestinians.” He added: “The occupation is nothing but a major architectural project,” where Jewish architects plan illegal settlements. These architects, he said, collaborate with the military, which runs against their professional ethics in a major way.
Hayeem also said that buildings used for housing and other purposes, along with infrastructure, are built in a manner that makes it so “Israeli settlers” can get around without seeing Palestinians, to the furthest extent possible.
“If you can’t transfer the Palestinians,” Hayeem said, describing the grand design, “you must make them invisible.” He added that Israel feels immune
from criticism or corrective action since no one holds it accountable to Geneva conventions, international law, or United Nations resolutions. Hayeem said Architects Against Apartheid is pressuring Israeli architects and the government to stop projects that erase Palestinian history. Even archaeology is being misused to tunnel under Palestinian homes, tinged with biblical references, Hayeem said.
Conference attendees believe this information-sharing will lead to productive action on many fronts, as they pledge to never forget those killed and the 750,000 refugees who have been displaced since 1948.
A “refugee lobby,” not just a general Palestinian lobby, is needed, one panelist noted. Another, affiliated with the Anti Discrimination Council, said the conflict is not really between Arabs and Jews, but between Arabs
and Zionism, or the Jewish state and its policies. She said many courageous Jews want wrongs righted and seek reconciliation.
Conference chairman Dr. Quaseem Blan urged attendees to vote, since many are American citizens, while stressing that the Palestinians need the right to self-determination, the right to return to their homeland and other rights secured.
AFP roving reporter and corresponding editor Mark Anderson can be reached via email at [email protected].
(Issue # 23 & 24, June 9 and 16, 2008)
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