Beacons of hope in Mideast gloom
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore
From the chaos and carnage of the Middle East comes a glimpse of human faith, hope and courage that may yet succeed in arresting the present stampede towards a far worse catastrophe than anything Jews and Palestinians have suffered before.
Two reports of incipient people power deserve the world's respectful attention.
First, the selfless initiative of a man and woman, both Israeli, who each lost an offspring in the conflict.
Second, the dedication of foreigners who are prepared to lay down their lives rather than let harm come to Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat.
A matching Palestinian response would be a tremendous triumph for peace.
A Palestinian suicide bomber killed Amiram Goldin's son, Omri, on a bus at Meron junction in Israel's far north. For all his grief, Goldin is not consumed with bitterness, and certainly nurses no lust for vengeance.
On the contrary, he has led other bereaved parents on a slow pilgrimage of peace from the scene of his son's murder to Jerusalem's Zion Square, near the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was brave enough to shake hands with Arafat and paid with his life for his vision and courage.
Goldin has called on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to reflect on his tactics towards the Palestinians and "to switch the train from the track of blood to the track of peace and stop the cycle of revenge and killing".
With passions riding high after the Haifa bombing, it is not a popular cause. Militant Israelis are pressuring Sharon to redeem his pledge to crush the Palestinian resistance. Hence, possibly, a diversionary attack on Syria to placate hardliners.
Efra Spigel, whose 21-year-old son was killed in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, has responded to the challenge of hate- driven politics by joining Goldin.
"Cooperation is a hope for peace," says her placard, aimed at Sharon who was defense minister during the invasion and whom Israel's own Kahane commission held "personally responsible" for the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians -- men, women and children -- in Lebanon's Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.
The no less inspiring second manifestation of goodwill concerns 18 activists who have formed a human shield around the ailing Arafat in his shell-damaged headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Three of the Britons are in their late 20s. The fourth, Roy Ratcliffe, a venerable 61, argues that Israel has no right to exile or eliminate Arafat.
"It's up to the Palestinian people to remove their president," he said. "We're here to defend their democratic rights."
The only female among them, Elaine Westblade, a 26-year-old charity worker, goes to the heart of the matter.
"We believe that in order to end the violence, you must end the occupation of the Palestinian territories," she said.
That would exculpate Israel, meet Palestinian aspirations and defang organizations like Hamas, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad. Israel's withdrawal would be a real gain for the so-called Middle East road map. The alternative of annexing the entire West Bank (as Israel has already annexed parts of Syria's Golan Heights and Jordanian east Jerusalem) is fraught with permanent peril.
The West Bank's 200,000 Jewish settlers and a fence that runs deep into Palestinian territory feed the rage that terrorists exploit. People go with the land, and the conquered will pose an even greater threat to the conqueror's security if they lose all hope of liberation.
Let the indomitable Spigel, who understands that Jews cannot live in peace if Palestinians do not, have the last word. Her ultimately successful campaign against Israel's military occupation of Lebanon lasted 18 years.
"We got the army out of Lebanon," she recalls of that achievement of people power. "It was a very difficult struggle but at last we got public support. It can happen again."
Amen to that.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. The views expressed here are his own.