Darom in Hebrew means ""south". This is the group formed these days. of Jews and Arabs living in the Negev, to protest jointly the deadly violence perpetrated by the Hammas and the Israeli govt. We held our first demonstration yesterday in Beer Sheva and got some press and TV coverage and some attention of the by passers. Due to the missiles sent daily into the city, the police did not actually allow us to congregate, so we walked about in twos and threes carrying signs in both languages. Some people yelled at us without bothering even to get our message straight, just the fact that Jews and Arabs were doing this together was too much of a cognitive dissonance for them.
In my opinion, Hammas continues its criminal inhuman ways, by firing out of schools (including the UN school), ambulances, hospitals, by imprisoning civilians in the houses where they hide and not allowing them to respond to warnings from Israel to leave battle areas, by stealing food and medication supplies sent to civilians for their own fighters only, and by continuing to deny the right of Israel to exist, and continuing the firing not into the Israeli army but towards civilians in Israel. At the same time, in this war Israel is doing major efforts to avoid unnecessary killing, lightyears beyond anything anyone has ever done in wars globally, certainly beyond the US in Iraq for instance. We got an email message yesterday from a Palestinian in Ghaza that they called the IDF publicized emergency humanitarian hotline and asked for rescue of 4 civilians trapped under ruins, and this indeed worked. I saw photos of people trapped in the bombed ammunition tunnels helped out from under by IDF soldiers. I am struggling publically to stop all this, because Israel is certainly guilty for not doing enough politically over the years to end all this, but I am not naive, the blame is much more on the Arabs, including Palestinians, from the refusal to accept the UN 1947 Partition Plan because it included the two states solution, on until today.
Take even Egypt. For three years, ever since the Disengagement of Israel from Ghaza in 2005, it allowed Hammas to be armed freely through the tunnels and refused any political pressure to stop this, because it supported the idea that this is used against Israel of course and not against Egypt. At the same time it prevented any Palestinians from fleeing Ghaza into Egypt, again cooperating with the Hammas in its single track war on Israel. Suddenly Egypt is now pushing for a ceasefire that will include no ammunition transport along its border with Ghaza, oh how nice.
The Jewish state of Israel (including its substantial Palestinian national minority) and Palestine are Siamese twins. If Palestine wants to live, it should first accept the fact that the most they can get is a State alongside a safe Israel. Ironically, Israel is the only state in the world that has a long-run vested interest in this. And I think that the wolrd idealists everywhere now demonstrating against Israel need to understand this also.
Take Venezuela. I spoke a while ago in the GA (General Assembly) of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, about the need for Jews to work towards Tikkun haOlam ("making a better world") for humanity at large everywhere and not just in Israel and not just for Jews. Some were upset. One executive said, "for years Israel brought Venezuelans here to train them in modernizing agriculture to alleviate poverty, and look at how Antisemitic Chavaz is!" I retorted, he may not be Antisemitic but anti Israeli and there is ample reasoning for this due to the Occupation etc. But should not we be proud for having supported for years Native American farmers, training them here, and now they finally have the first Latin American president? It's like the frustration of League for Women Voters in the US, when they see the poor Afro American women they empower vote for Bush.
I am a proud Jew, a proud Israeli, a proud Zionist, and my 35 years of struggling on the "left"of issues does not make me any less proud. It is just very painful and exhausting.
Leah Shakdiel, Yeruham, Negev, Israel
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