The official media line that we've been fed in the past several months about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is that Israel has been defending itself against terrorism that has threatened the security and the existence of the state of Israel. But from where I'm sitting, the situation is much different. I intern at Grassroots International, a small development organization based in Boston, and over the past few months I've gained a unique perspective on the current crisis in the Middle East. Grassroots International provides funds for community organizations in several regions throughout the world in an effort to promote people-centered development and global justice. The program was originally born out of a commitment to justice for Palestinians in 1984.
Grassroots currently supports a number of partner organizations in the Palestinian territories, including the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, which provides much needed medical care to Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza. We also support the Palestine Center for Human Rights, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and the Ibdaa cultural Center in Dheishe refugee camp, which works to keep refugee kids off the street and was the site of the recent Academy Award-nominated documentary film Promises.
Obviously, in the months that I've been working at Grassroots International since January, the situation in the Middle East has gone from bad to worse. Our partners have been directly afflicted by the recent violence and it's become downright frightening to come into the office and wonder what news we might receive next. Last month, Israeli troops broke into the Ibdaa cultural center, took it over, and positioned a sniper from the roof of the building, thereby gaining a perfectly threatening vantage point over the entire Dheishe refugee camp. The center is used by the community as a children's after-school program, a home for the community dance troupe, and as a library.
The Headquarters of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, another one of our partners, was attacked two weeks ago in Ramallah. Tank fire destroyed one ambulance, and medical workers, particularly since the siege of Ramallah, have been under constant harassment and threat by Israeli soldiers. For instance, Dr. Jihaad Mashal, a UPMRC Director, was forcefully detained for four days in his house. Such actions, particularly when the Palestinian communities need medical supplies and physicians most, constitute gross human rights violations and have been condemned by the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations.
This morning at Grassroots I came across something that truly disturbed me. While looking through some archives from the early 1980s, I found a newsletter put out by Grassroots, dated the Spring of 1983, on the crisis of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The newsletter reads "thousands have been killed or wounded... countless innocent civilians desperately need food, medicine, and shelter- above all they need basic security and proof that the future holds more in store than further bloodshed and misery." The words are so chilling precisely because they could be applied to the violence that is going on today, even as I write.
Why have we seemingly come full circle? Are Palestinians today any closer to that promise of basic security and a future that holds more than bloodshed and misery than they were nearly 20 years ago when this now yellowed and frayed newsletter was printed?
I apologize in advance for offending anyone, but I simply cannot reconcile the two disparate images that have been pounding through my head this week: 1) the rally in DC in support of Israel's defense against terrorism, and 2) the crushed homes, white rubble and twisted steel which hides bodies underneath in Jenin. Just yesterday morning as well reading the old newsletter, I also read a variety of news sources' accounts of the recent violence. The New York Times reports that the UN envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen toured the Jenin camp on Thursday and was "horrified beyond belief" by what he saw, stating "not any objective can justify such action, with colossal suffering to civilians. We saw children looking for their parents. We saw fathers, brothers, sisters digging in the rubble in order to find the corpses of their dear ones."
Every time the rebuilding process occurs, hearts are broken and scars, literal and figurative, are created that make this peace so much more distant than it was twenty years ago. Destruction plants the seeds for new animosity to grow, new generations of children that grow with new, more deeply entrenched perceptions of an enemy. It is clear to me that there is no "military solution" to this problem. The Israeli government cannot ensure the safety of its people through destruction. The Israeli government cannot perpetuate the claim that it overruns civilians and their homes in the name of stopping "terrorism." Furthermore, the United States government and the United States people, cannot further the criminal analogy that has recently been made between the US War on Terror and the Israeli War against Palestinians. The events of Sept. 11 and our tax dollars cannot be used as a justification for the atrocities in Jenin, for the humiliating curfews endured by Palestinians, nor for the death of a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot by Israeli troops enforcing a curfew just yesterday morning.
Christina Turner is a senior majoring in International Relations.
