Remembrance and celebration

Two years ago while planning a visit to the Black Forest region I chanced on a series of battlefield tours.

A not to-be-missed offer proposed visiting the WW1 battlefields in Flanders and France. We chose to stick to the Schwarzwald, but just the same I followed a link in the advertisement to an article in The Sunday Times bearing the title

“In search of Wilfred Owen”. The author Chris Haslam told of his battlefield tour.

“Sunset on the Somme and a sepia mist shrouds the Serre road like mustard gas. The scattered trees stand like silent, frozen explosions and but for the bark of distant shotguns, all is quiet on the western front.

The landmarks of butchery are scattered along a 15-mile strip from Gommecourt in the north to Maricourt in the south, like the attractions in Death’s own theme park.

There’s Luke Copse, where the Accrington Pals were wiped out. Over the road is Hawthorn Ridge, where 19,000lb of ammonal was detonated beneath a German redoubt; and a short stroll away is Newfoundland Park, a delightful-sounding spot where hundreds fell under fire from just five German machineguns. Halsam was looking for the place where a distant relative died.

“Nobody has visited him before, so I’m planting a rose of Picardy to atone for 90 years of neglect.”

Further on he finds the place Owen described in “Spring Offensive”

“But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.”

Two months ago I read that the last surviving WW1 soldier had faded away.

I’m sure they will find another survivor who lied about his age and managed to fight at Ypres or Gallipoli.

Like the battlefield tours in Flanders and France there are Gallipoli tours as well .

I don't know how many people attend the ANZAC dawn parades in Australia and New Zealand. No grieving parents, widows or orphaned children are left to weep for their men who fell at ANZAC cove and other hopeless footholds in the Dardanelles. During the eight month disastrous Gallipoli campaign 2,721 New Zealanders and 8,597 Australians lost their lives.

The following year the battles on the Western Front were even bloodier.

The British forces suffered more than 60,000 casualties in one day at the battle of the Somme.

The Remembrance Day for Israel’s war dead took place on Monday this week. Twenty four hours before the Independence Day celebrations we honoured the memory of 22,684 soldiers killed in the line of duty and 2,431 civilian terror victims. Sixty two years of independence have produced a haven for Jews fleeing persecution as well as Jews who chose to live here.

The price paid for independence has been high, but the alternative of not having a Jewish state is far worse.

Our remembrance days differ from the assemblies at Arlington, Whitehall, the Arc de Triomphe and elsewhere. What’s more, as our Remembrance Day ends it intermeshes with our Independence Day celebrations. Our grief gives way to festivity.

After sixty two years we are still debating the essence of Jewish sovereignty , where we should demarcate our borders, what place should religion have in this entity and how we should regard our minority citizens.

Arab affairs analyst Dr. Guy Bechor, head of Middle East Studies at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, says it’s time to say goodbye, not to the state of course but to East Jerusalem.

In and article entitled “It’s time to say goodbye,” published last week in Yediot Ahronot Dr Bechor brings no startling new revelation, he merely reminds us that the world doesn’t recognise Israel's sovereignty in east Jerusalem.

Keeping Jerusalem’s Arab neighbourhoods comes with a price.

It’s not recognised as having rights in the city’s Arab sections, yet at the same time it financially supports the residents of these areas.

“We offer welfare payments, allowances, medical services, pension plans, education, infrastructure, and all the other social benefits accorded by law to 250,000 Palestinians, most of whom reject Israel and view themselves as Palestinians, citizens of a future Palestinian state, should one be established.”

Furthermore says Dr. Bechor, “Since we applied Israeli law to these areas, the Arabs who live there enjoy resident status and are entitled to an Israeli ID card.”...”We are dealing with thousands of people who have no attachment or connection to Israel, and whose inclusion within Israel was a historical mistake.

The time has come to correct it; this absurd situation cannot go on any longer. Fortunately, these people boycott the local elections in Jerusalem, which they do not recognise. Had they participated in the vote, they could have taken over city hall.

While Israel continues to financially support the Palestinians living in Jerusalem, they move there en masse. Many people enter marriages of convenience with east Jerusalem residents, entitling them to the same economic advantages as well as the coveted Israeli ID card.

For some reason, there is no difference between the ID cards granted to citizens and to residents. And for some reason, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics insists – for motives that should be looked into – to count these 250,000 residents among the Arab Israeli population.”

Dr. Bechor’s solution is problematic. He doesn’t advocate annulling the annexation of all of east Jerusalem. The exception of course is the Old City and its environs. He simply wants to disfranchise the 250,000 Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, stop the benefit payments they receive and cancel their Israeli ID cards. As a result we will lose 250,000 citizens and Israel’s Muslim population will automatically drop to 1,250,000

Government ministers never tire of declaring Jerusalem Israel’s indivisible capital. In reality it has always been divided. The annexation process didn’t really change facts on the ground.

On April 15, Elie Wiesel took out full page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere, in which, amongst other things, while emphasising Jewish rights to the city, he denied Muslim connection to Jerusalem, citing the fact that there are zero mentions of Jerusalem in the Koran. He said that: "For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture -- and not a single time in the Koran." He also claimed that Muslims can settle anywhere in Jerusalem His position has been criticised by the Americans for Peace Now in an open letter to him who said that "Jerusalem is not just a Jewish symbol. It is also a holy city to billions of Christians and Muslims worldwide. It is Israel's capital, but it is also a focal point of Palestinian national aspirations." They also claimed that equal residential rights do not exist in the city.. Wiesel has also been criticised in Israel. Haaretz published an article by Yossi Sarid which accused him of being out of touch with the realities of life in Jerusalem.

In the final assessment with the Palestinians, if we ever reach it, facts on the ground will count a lot. Certainly not every maverick hilltop outpost will count, however the main settlement blocs will be difficult if not impossible to move

I thought the following letter published in the letters to the editor section of The Economist worth quoting

“SIR –You claim that if Binyamin Netanyahu is serious about peace he should trade his current coalition partners from the right for Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima party (“Stop the bungling”, March 20th). Yet when Ms Livni was serving under Ehud Olmert as foreign minister in 2007, Mahmoud Abbas was offered a Palestinian state on all of the West Bank, a shared sovereignty in Jerusalem and an Israeli gesture on Palestinian refugees. He rejected the offer.

The Economist has been claiming for years that this is what Israel should offer in order to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Were Ms Livni to recover her previous job, this time under Mr Netanyahu, she might be able to resubmit Mr Olmert’s offer, and Mr Abbas would probably reject it once again.

Am I missing something in your argument, or is it just that you have become dogmatic about blaming Israel and absolving the Palestinians for the absence of peace?

Emmanuel Navon
Abba Eban graduate programme for diplomacy studies
Tel-Aviv University

Obviously Netanyahu prefers the present lack of initiative and inaction to engagement with the Palestinians to work out a step by step or final stage solution to the Conflict. So far Tzipi Livni hasn’t filled the role of an aggressive leader of the opposition. Largely ignored by the news media she is out of the public eye and mind. The Labour party is both in and out of the coalition government.

Maybe this state of inaction is about to end. US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell arrived in Israel for his first visit in six weeks. Prime Minister Netanyahu stressed that Israel still disagrees with the Obama Administration regarding the building freeze in east Jerusalem. Commentators believe Mitchell will tone down the demands for a building freeze and try to convince the Palestinians to “climb down” and make an effort to sit down with the Israelis. In return Israel will be expected to make some kind of face-saving gesture to the Palestinians.

King Abdullah of Jordan said this week that Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon and the stalled peace process with the Palestinians might lead to war. "In recent years, without progress, we've witnessed two wars in a short period of time.

"There are sources in Lebanon that feel that war is inevitable. The threat of war exists. If we do not bring the Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiations table and if we cross the July deadline – there is a high chance of confrontation. I wouldn't want to meet with you in six or seven months and say I told you so," said Abdullah in a conversation with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board.

Admittedly the present impasse heightens tension in the region but neither Hezbollah nor Hamas are eager for a military confrontation with Israel. Despite the inaction and the frustration it causes, another Intifada is not likely to break out in the near future.

Have a good weekend

Beni 22^nd of April, 2010.