47 Recent U.S. Newspaper Commentary

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'Little to show for Israeli, a sii
scale survey af Palestinians in­
volved in these peace prograins
suggests that the enterprise has
been a waste of time and money.
The unpublished report, a capy of
which was obtained' by The
ChIanicle, was commissianed by
an unidentiiied donar natian from
Pal Visian, an independent Pales­
tinian youth organization.and re­
search center in East Jerusalem
that is invalved in dialogue work­
shops.
Pal Vision is headed by Rami
Naser Eddin, a 31-year-ald activist
who. was jailed as a teenager for
throwing a Malatov cocktail at an
Israeli army jeep. The group SlU­
veyed nearly 400 Palestinian par­
ticipants and counselars.
Study says programs
for teens are waste
of time and money
By Matthew Kalman
CHRONICLE FOREIGN SERVICE
RAMALLAH, West Bank ­
Each year, hundreds of Israeli and
Palestinian te'enagers defy the vio­
lence and hatred fhat divides them
by forging personal ties that they
hope will lay the groundwork for
future peace.
John Wallach, the founder of
Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit group
based in New York that has invited
more than 4,000 young people
from conflict areas to meet one an­
other, said before his death in 2002
that such people-ta-people pro­
grams have created "an enduring
commitment to building a future
of peaceful coexistence."
A virtual peace industry has
flourished around these work­
shops, creating a rait ofPalestinlan
and Israeli nongovernmental or­
ganizations. Between 1993 and
2000, Western governments and
foundations
spent
between
$20 million and $25 million on
the dialogue groups, according to
a 2002 report by the IsraellPales­
tine Center for Research and In­
formation.
But the programs have failed to
produce a single prominent peace
activist on either side, most obselv­
ers agree. And nolV the .first wic\e­
o
few from refugee camps
The survey concludes that mast
Palestinian graups have used dia­
logue funds to finance other activ­
ities, and that Palestinian partici­
pants were unrepresentative af a
wider society, tending to. be chil­
dren ar friends of high-ranking
Palestinian officials or econamic
elites. Only 7 percent af partici­
pants were refugee camp resi­
dents, even though they make up
16 percent of the Palestinian pap­
ulatian.
"After I saw this research, we
stopped. It was shacking for me,"
srud Naser Eddin. "Most af these
projects, there is nasustainability.
They just want to. meet people,
which is very nice, very interest­
ing, to get to. know each other. But
ROBERT F. BUKATY
IAssocioted PrB" 200~
Abida Ayda, 14, of Afghanistan, reaches for a rope swing during a
trust-building exercise at a Seeds af Peace Camp in Maine.
what is the next step? What is the
outcome? It's all for pUblicity, for
the media," he said.
The results also stated:
~ 91 percent said they were no
longer in cantact with any Israelis
that they had met thraugh the pra­
gram.
~ 93 percent said there was no.
follaw-up to. camp activity that
they had participated in.
l> Only 5 percent agreed that
their pragram had helped "pra­
mate peace culture and dialogue
between participants."
,. Only 11 percent came away
believing that. "there is samething
that unites us ~vith the other par­
ty."
"The lang-term pasitive im­
pact, if any, fades with time, be­
cause these meetings end with the
termination of the program and
there is absence af communica­
tian and follaw-up at variaus lev­
els. It is noted that these activities
expire with the end af the meeting
and the closure of the project," the
report says.
The survey's authors also. nated
that Palestinian "organizatians
themselves refused to. give any in­
fannation regarding the partici­
pants and the type of programs in­
troduced and ather important in­
formation needed far this study."
Indeed, jaint activities with Is­
raelis favored by the internatianal
I!II
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2008
n eace a p.s
community are deeply unpopular or the USA, not here. Then when
in ·the West Bank and Gaza Strip, . they return back here, they faund
where talking to. the enemy is gen­ that it is' useless."
Not all Palestinian participants, '
erally regarded as betrayal. The
warkshaps are typically canducted however, agreed.
Hiba Nusseibeh, 17, attended a
in the United States or Europe.
"Public opinian that prevails in Seeds of Peace summer camp in
Palestine regarding the financial 2005 and returned as a counselor
corruption that exists within the last year. She keeps in touch with
NGOs, which are internationally severa! Israeli girls wham she met
funded, especially thoSe organiza­ through the pragram.
"Seeds af Peace has flipped my
tions which encourage and lead
such programs, prevented these whole liie aver," said Nusseibeh,
NGOs from declaring abaut their who. comes from a prominent Pal­
jaint activities with Israelis," says estinian family and attends an elite
girls' schaol in East Jerusalem.
the report.
Naser Eddin says many Pales­ "Befare, I didn't Imow much abaut
tinian arganizations warking with politics. I waS.Iiving 'my awn life,
Israelis denied having any contact. and I wasn't invalved in the can­
flict. Now I want to. mal(e changes.
fear among Paiestinil1ii1s
Seeds of Peace has made me more
"We were shocked. They de­ dynamic, more determined. First
nied it because they are airaid of we must achieve our rights. Then
the Palestinian lacal cammunity," we can work tawards peace."
But several Israeli teenagers
he said. "Most NGOs warking
with Israelis dan't publish it in the mirrared the disenchantment af
media or in their annual report ar their Palestinian caunterparts.
Arnichai Graniewitz, 16, was 11
anywhere."
Ahmad Saii, a survey researcher when he attended a Kids for Peace
fram the West Bank city af Ramal­ summer camp arganized through
. lah who is invalved in Breaking the Episcopal Church in Jerusa­
Barders, a dialogue group for lem and Atlanta. A group of 12
adults from each side, said the im­ Jews, Christians and Muslims met
weekly for several months befare
pact on teens has been minimal.
"They go there (abroad), spend heading off to camp in Atlanta.
"I don't think it really changed
10 to 14 days in a gaod enviran­
ment, and they have fun, but they anything," Graniewitz said. "We
are much too far away from the re­ met once after the camp, and that
ality," said Safi. ''They find they was it."
can be friends as humans. They
talk. They discover they can live E-mail Matthew Kalman at
with each other, but in Germany foreign@sfchranicle.com.
T
No Peace Without Hamas
Page 1 of2
washingtonpost.com
No Peace Without Barnas
By Mahmoud al-Zahar
Thursday, Aprill7, 2008; A23
GAZA -- President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to
visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty
and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring
the fact that American policy has reached its dead end.
Secretary of State Condol eezza Rice acts as if a few
alterations here and there would make the hideous
straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice
persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen
meaningless roadblocks from among the more than
500 West Bank control points, these forces
simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing
projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly,
this is "business as usual" for the Palestinians.
Last week's attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are
fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its
disposal -- from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its
judiciary that "legalizes" the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five
years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living
in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less.
The U.S.-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the
Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among
them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East. Yet efforts to subvert our
democratic experience include the American coup d'etat that created the new sectarian paradigm with
Fatah and the continuing warfare against and enforced isolation of Gazans.
Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker
should conclude: that no "peace plan," "road map" or "legacy" can succeed unless we are sitting at the
negotiating table and without any preconditions.
Israel's escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis "peace conference" in November has been
consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment -- in violation of international
conventions. Israeli military strikes on Gaza have killed hundreds of Palestinians since then with
unwavering \Vhite House approval; in 2007 alone the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 40 to 1,
up from 4 to 1 during the period from 2000 to 2005.
Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an
accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled -- my first-born -- after an
Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where
we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.
Hussam was only 21, but like most young men in Gaza he had grown up fast out of necessity. When I
No
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IV,",,,,,,,,,",,, then. But now,
mt)O"'efllsnme:m, we
peace can there be not from justice? movement
on
we cannot allow
foundational crime at the core of
Jewish state
violent expulsion
our lands
villages that made us
-- to slip out of world
consciousness, forgotten or
away. Judaism -- which
so much to human
contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modem proponents of tikkun
corrupted
the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.
A "peace
with Palestinians cannot
even its
tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the
borders 1967;
all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West
its illegal annexation
releases all
and ends
blockade of our
international
would provide the
for
would lay the groundwork
return of millions of
we
we can start to be whole
UUJ.u....,,"
proud of my sons
of
sons -- as
- not as "gunmen" or "militants."
SDClsse:SSI,on: better that
as fathers
miss
day. I think of
boys, as curious students, as
men with
of their people than
better that they were
were active in the Palestinian struggle
survival
even in
potential ­
to their
PU'>T'<l'lXln,prp
History teaches us that everything is
to
the material
1948 is scarcely
begun, and adversity
taught us patlenlce.
for
Israeli state
Spartan culture of permanent
war, it is all too vulnerable to time,
and demographics: In the
it always a question of our
children and
who come after us.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, is a founder ofHamas.
is foreign minister in the government of
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which was elected in January 2006.
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2008 The Washington
Company
Mr. Zahar and Mr. Carter
Page 1 of2
washingtonpost.com
Mr. Zahar and Mr. Carter
The former president, on what he says is a road to peace, embraces Hamas terrorists.
Thursday, April 17, 2008; A22
ON THE OPPOSITE page today we publish an article by the "foreign minister" of Eam-as, IVIahmouqal­
Zahar, that drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimnw Carter. We believe
Mr. Zahar's words are worth publishing because they provide some clarity about the group he helps to
lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process. Mr.
Carter himself is holding what appears to be a series of meetings with Harnas leaders during a tour of the
Middle East. He met one militant in the West Bank town of Ram all ah on Tuesday and was reportedly
planning to meet Mr. Zahar in Cairo today before traveling to Damascus for an appointment with
Khaled Meshal, Hamas's top leader.
!v1r. Zahar lauds Mr. Carter for the "welcome tonic" of saying that no peace process can succeed "unless
we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions." Yet Mr. Zahar has his own
preconditions: Before any peace process can "take even its first tiny step," he says, Israel must withdraw
to the 1967 borders and evacuate Jerusalem while preparing for the "return of millions of refugees." In
fact, as Mr. Zahar makes clear, Hamas is not at all interested in a negotiated peace with the Jewish state,
whose existence it refuses to accept: "Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely
begun," he concludes.
In that fight, no act of terrorism is out of bounds for the Hamas leader, who endorses the group's recent
ambush of Israeli civilians working at a fuel depot that supplies Gaza. The "total war" of which he
speaks was initiated and has been sustained by Hamas itself through its deliberate targeting of civilians,
such as the residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, who suffer daily rocket attacks.
These facts would hardly need restating were it not for actors such as Mr. Carter, who portray Hamas as
rational and reasonable. Hamas is "perfectly willing" for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "to
represent them in all direct negotiations with the Israelis, and they also maintain that they will accept
any agreement that he brokers with the Israelis" provided a referendum is held on it, the former
president told the newspaper Haaretz. Compare that claim with Mr. Zahar's own words on the opposite
page. In fact, Mr. Zahar has called Mr. Abbas "a traitor" for negotiating with Israel -- a label that is, in
the Palestinian context, an incitement to murder.
Mr. Carter justifies his meetings with familiar arguments about the value of dialogue with enemies. But
he misses the point. Contacts between enemies can be useful: Israel is legendary for such negotiations,
and even now it is engaged in back-channel bargaining with Hamas through Egypt. But it is one thing to
communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and
political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of
another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed
terrorist such as Khaled Meshal -- or Mahmoud al-Zahar.
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©2008
Washington
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