Tourism in Israel is being hammered. The Al-Aqsa uprising that began last fall has prompted a flood of trip postponements and cancellations, particularly by Americans who saw no need to put themselves or their children at risk when stones and bullets were flying in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Members of Congress are urging the Bush administration to review its diplomatic treatment of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in light of the violent uprising against Israel.
As you might imagine, living in Israel right now feels schizophrenic. We continue with our regular lives — going to work, eating dinner, shopping, praying, catching a movie — and meanwhile, not far away, our soldiers are at war. The newspapers appear, the soccer games go on, people chat over coffee in the cafes, and the war goes on and threatens to get bigger. The most abnormal thing about it may be that one begins to accept it as normal.
The acid test for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat came last week when he made his fateful visit to the White House to discuss Bill Clinton\’s framework agreement — a roadmap designed to set the parameters for negotiating the tough issues that separate Israel and the Palestinians. Arafat failed the test.
\nThe government of Israel has wisely chosen to cooperate with a U.S.-led international commission that began investigating Israeli-Palestinian violence this week. Led by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, the commission hopes its work will reduce the violence in the region and lead the parties back to the negotiating table.
The October Violence is the short-hand designation for the deadly sniping, shooting and police action between Palestinians and Israelis, including the unprecedented call-to-arms of Israeli Arabs. If American Jews accept \”October Violence\” as the title (Palestinians call it \”the riots,\” while the American press reprises the frightening \”intifada\”), two months later we haven\’t yet found a way to talk about it, even among ourselves.
One of the most riveting – and controversial – photographs to have emerged from the recent violence in Israel was that of a bloodied and dazed young man with an angry Israeli policeman standing behind him shouting. While the young man was first identified by the Associated Press, the photo\’s source, as a Palestinian, it soon became clear that he was an American studying in an Israeli yeshiva – a victim of Palestinians, who had dragged him from a car, beaten and stabbed him; the policeman had been shouting at the Arab assailants. The New York Times, which ran the photo and mistaken caption, published a subsequent correction and follow-up article. Grossman, who is recuperating and undergoing physical therapy for his wounds, feels not only blessed to have escaped his would-be murderers, but richer in a sense for his harrowing experience. He penned the piece below for Am Echad.
As the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enters its second month, there is a growing fear that it will escalate and embroil the entire region.
Uri Savir may not have won a Nobel Peace Prize, but far more than the three national leaders who did, he is Mr. Oslo. For three long months in 1993, the then director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry sat secretly in the Norwegian capital and hammered out an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization that kindled hopes of an end to a century of belligerence.
We are able to deal with this situation,\” says Yisrael Medad, a veteran, American-born settlement activist, \”because we remember what happened in 1947 to \’48. We are returning to our history.\”
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