Editor's Note: Linda Wolf is coauthor of Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century : Stories from a New Generation of Activists (Gabriola Island [Canada]: New Society Publishers, 2001). Wolf runs the Daughters-Sisters outreach program, the Youth Activism site and is an award-winning photographer. We are privileged to publish these self-reflective dispatches from Wolf's journeys, throughout Israel and Palestinian territories, as part of the Compassionate Listening Project, a peace initiative created by Leah Green that enables citizens to take part in the reconciliation process.

July 11, 2002
Israel

Jossi Klein Halevi
Author, At the Entrance of the Garden of Eden (Saint Helens, OR: Perennial Press, 2002).

Excerpts from a Compassionate Listening meeting at his home:

Where shall I begin? I wear two hats when I speak to a group like this; spiritual seeker, and hard-nosed realist. In first camp, I'm the author of a book that came out close to a year ago, The Entrance to the Garden of Eden, in 1998/99. It was an attempt as a religious Jew to see if I could pray with Muslims and Christians; to see if we could use religion as a way to create a common language. I'm a journalist, and as many others in Israel, I have been pushed increasingly over the edge in past few years, and far predating this past Intifada, and after Oslo, I have been pushed to the right.

There are basically two camps in this country. One that believes that Oslo was a huge disaster and probably the worst self-inflict wound that Israel ever had. And in this camp there are two groups: One, right wing ideologues that never wanted it to succeed, and are relieved that it collapsed, and the other, who are the major of Israelis, who hoped it would succeed, and see Oslo as a tragedy. And would pay almost any cost to end the conflict. And the other camp made up of people who principally believe that no concession would end the conflict, that no acceptance of Israel as legitimate will be coming from the Arab side.

There are many Palestinian moderates who believe in peace with Israel, but I can count on one hand those who truly believe that Israel has a sovereign right to any part of this land.

I have been on a spiritual quest. I've been to churches and in the mosques. I've asked people, "Do you accept Israel's existence?" Moderates say, "Well it does, so I accept it." When you ask, "Have Jewish people returned home?" Very few people say yes, until that next step is made in the Arab world, there will not be peace in the Middle East.

When I think of model of peace, so far we have only one – the Egyptian treaty of the first Camp David. You can see in that experience an interesting pattern. The minute Anwar Sadat said, "We welcome you, Israel, into the Middle East," the minute he said, Sadat became a national hero. Before that he led the Pearl Harbor of Israel. But afterwards, he was a hero.

This is predicated on a simple position. Accept Israel. If you don’t assure the Israeli people that our concessions will lead to peace, you will not have it. Right now, 70% of Israelis are with Sharon. We will not go back to the left until we are convinced that the next wave of concessions is going to be real concessions. When I heard Bush's speech, I said, "Thank god." The onus is on the Arab world.

What all of you well meaning people are doing is focusing on a narrow lens. When we, Israelis look at the conflict, the map, we see the Middle East, with Israel as the minority. What we really see are multiple levels of conflict. Israel as Goliath in the Arab world and the Arab world as Goliath in the mind of an Israeli.

And if you say where is this leading to, more occupation, and more war? That is exactly where it is leading. What the Arab world doesn't realize about us, is that we are not going away. If the Palestinian thinks they are going to wear us down, they don't understand us. I don't think we are going to wear ourselves down either. I understand they're indigenous. I am also indigenous here. And they don't get it and still don't get it. They are going to keep inflicting Sharon on themselves.

I was a journalist and I was against the occupation along with a majority of Israel, but today, I say if the Arabs don't accept us, then we should keep occupying. Both sides are responsible for this conflict. At key moments, when we were willing to give much more than we are now, the other side said no deal. Then what ended up happening was Arab tragedy, grievances, and it's true, it's unfair. Most Israelis today see our history as missed Arab opportunities and the Arab world creating self inflicted wounds, because the Arab world and the Palestinians refuse to accept the legitimacy of our presence. To them, and the rest of the world, we are invaders and thieves here.

There are two national movements here, with two legitimate claims to whole of this area. My claim to Judea and Sumerea is no less compelling to than theirs to Nazareth, Jaffa and Haifa, and I have a compelling claim to Hebron.

If we could believe it's not us versus them, 70 – 75% of this population would be willing to do whatever is necessary for peace. In this country, there are no big people and no little people. People say won't we take risks for peace? We're the ones who brought Arafat and the horrible people here … we take risks for peace. and now we find that the most lunatic voice among us who said, "You're going to create a terrorist state 6 minutes from your homes, the Palestinian national movement is about subverting your national fulfillment, you're going to bring upon yourself a corrupt, evil, fundamentalism” was right. Who ever in the history of the world heard of turning children into suicide machines, who ever heard this in history?

The most corrupt national liberation movement the world has ever seen; we created it, we empowered it, we gave them the uniforms, the weapons – we convinced the US to help us . . . risks for peace? No more. . . .

Arafat sent a letter to Rabin saying that he accepted a legitimacy of the Israeli state. Then I said, "OK, this is good." He promised to rescind the Palestinian nationalist state. The next day, Sept 14, 1993, the day after the famous handshake, he made a speech to the Arab world, in Aman, Jordan, to his critics and he said he didn't know why he was getting criticized, I am beginning the stages process. The stages process. We will use any territory that Zionists leave as a base to destroy Israel.

Arafat has promised no more tricks so many times, never to be trusted. They want us to give up land for words. Words that say one thing one day and then to others say, we don't mean it.