An open letter to Mr Zion Evrony, Israeli ambassador to Ireland<<      To the Editor, The Irish Times<<      
  On the picket line with the Women in Black<<

Aosdána motion on Israel.

To second the motion on Israel, let me first state that we are not calling for a total boycott on Israeli produce, or Israeli artists and intellectuals. We are acting to resist the Israeli government’s attempts to use cultural activities as a means of propaganda for its illegal policies toward Palestine, and we are extending our support to those Israeli artists and intellectuals who oppose those policies.

I went to Israel last year; I had never been there before. I was, I must admit, confused by my own family history. My mother was a Russian Jew, and my uncle and aunt had gone to live in Israel. In the nineteen eighties my son went out there to work on a kibbutz. He came home distressed by the virulent discrimination he had observed, not only against Arabs but against Jewish immigrants of colour.

I travelled last year from Jordan. Crossing the border from Jordan was fraught with uncertainty as the opening and closing of the border is completely arbitrary. I was shocked by the aggressive behaviour of the young soldiers of the Israeli border guard, not only towards Arabs; their treatment in particular of three hundred elderly people from India – a forgotten tribe of Indian Jews who were immigrating into Israel – was brutally insulting.

In Jerusalem I met a group of Menonites who had come to monitor the demolition of a Palestinian village and to help Palestinian children going to school; the children’s homes were divided from the school by border controls and they had to wait every day for the arbitrary hours of the opening of the gates. Israeli settlers, new arrivals from Brooklyn, would descend like marauders from the hill above to hurl rocks at the Menonites. The day before my arrival, one of the latter, a young Swiss woman, had been badly hurt.

I went to Ramallah to meet a women’s group. In that city the whole infrastructure has collapsed because of Israel’s economic boycott, no wages paid for months to civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses, their debts are mounting, and many of them have to rely on relatives in the rural areas for food. Hamas is the only party to provide anything in the way of welfare, it is as though Israel has deliberately engineered the popularity of Hamas in order to justify its own propaganda. While I was with the women’s group, a phone call came in to tell them that there was no milk for any of the babies in Gaza. The sense of desperation and imprisonment is only heightened by the huge wall that has been built between the communities, too high to see over, blocking out the sunlight.

I went to Tel Aviv, into a university environment. There was some discussion of a cultural boycott but some people who might have come out openly to support it explained that they felt powerless in the face of an ongoing governmental onslaught on the university itself and academic freedom, with budget cuts, individual contracts and privatisation. They had indeed closed the university for one day in protest against the attacks on Lebanon, but they were very much aware that if they continued to step out of line they could lose their posts and their pensions – a case in point was the late professor Tanya Reinhart, who spoke out against the conflict with Palestine. Her searing criticism of her own country and her support for an academic boycott aroused such bureaucratic harassment against her that she was ousted from her job and decided to leave Israel.

One ray of hope, in Tel Aviv, and a prime reason for my asking you to support this motion, was the Women in Black. For nineteen years, every Friday, these middle-aged and elderly Jewish women – there were 15 of them the day I was there, plus a couple of refusniks – they stand in the midst of the main shopping area of the city with their placards protesting against the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, and the lack of human rights. They have been vilified, harassed and spat upon. After their work has been done, they put their placards back into their plastic bags and go home to prepare the Sabbath meal. They told me of two gross violations of human rights. Palestinian civilians wounded by Israeli forces are treated in Israeli hospitals but are only allowed one relative to visit them who cannot leave the hospital grounds to buy food so the Women in Black have to bring it to them. Also, there are 1200 female prisoners and 300 children in a jail outside Tel Aviv – they are allowed one letter every two months and no Palestinian visitors.

I will end with a quotation from Tanya Reinhart who praised the modest role of “international solidarity movements – often this struggle for justice seems futile. Nevertheless, it has penetrated global consciousness.” The minimum we can do is to support this motion and not allow ourselves to be caught up and used by Israeli state propaganda.

An open letter to Mr Zion Evrony, Israeli ambassador to Ireland.

Mr Ambassador, who the hell do you think you are, interfering with Irish artists, prescribing what we may or may not reflect upon? Headlines in the Irish Independent of 29 March 07: “ Israeli fury at biased call by artists: Aosdána members urge policy of non-cooperation with state-funded cultural institutions.” You are quoted as saying we had singled out your country for attack and that our decision was “fundamentally wrong, unjust, biased, and based on misunderstanding and misinformation of current affairs in the Middle East.” I wonder that the Irish government does not immediately break off diplomatic relations with Israel for your absurd violation of those articles in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights that guarantee free expression, free exchange of views, the sharing of information and so forth.

But what was it all about? The previous afternoon, at the Annual General Meeting of Aosdána, I had successfully put forward a resolution to the following effect: “Mindful of the 4th of August 2006 call from Palestinian filmmakers, artists and cultural workers to end all cooperation with state-sponsored Israeli cultural events and institutions, Aosdána wishes to encourage Irish artists and cultural institutions to reflect deeply before engaging in such cooperation, always bearing in mind the undeniable courage of those Israeli artists, writers and intellectuals who oppose their own government’s illegal policies towards the Palestinians.” In short, Aosdána members were asked to support their fellow artists in their fight for freedom of expression, unbounded by arbitrary frontiers. Irish artists for years were inhibited by censorship laws and anti-terrorist laws, and now, in our comparative freedom, our ideas, imagination, and skills to implement them, are there to be shared, and that is what we do. And we do have a right to show our opinion of the actions of any state, good or bad, especially when called upon to do so by colleagues who live there.

I proposed the motion to which you took such exception, (a) because I am a Jewish woman and inspired by another Jewish woman, the late Tanya Reinhart, distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, whose searing criticism of her own country and her support for an academic boycott brought upon her so much bullying and harassment inside the university that she was forced to leave Israel; and (b) because of my experience when I visited Israel last year. I am a Jew not by choice but by your own constitution which says that the children of female Jews have a right to be Jewish and claim their part in the homeland of Israel. I have therefore a particular right to criticize you, indeed to shout from the roof tops if need be and to get support from any one I please, just as I have a right to criticize my own Irish government and call it criminal when it upholds illegal war by facilitating the USA at Shannon, corrupting our Constitution and betraying the Proclamation of 1916.

Shortly after the Balfour Declaration my uncle in England studied Hebrew and Arabic in order to go to Palestine. However, he must have disagreed with Arthur Balfour’s extraordinary statement that “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,” because when he arrived in Palestine he joined the Berit Shalom group which sought peace with the Arabs and a Jewish/Arab bi-national state. In the end he was assassinated, by an Arab. Later on, in the 1960s, his sister, my aunt, retired from medical practice in London to live in Israel, in Caesarea, where she ran a free clinic for poor Arabs and also Jews.

Much as I admire my relatives’ idealism, I have a right to question the origins of the Jewish settlements in Palestine prior to the setting-up of the state of Israel. For instance, in the early years of the 20th century settlers certainly bought land from Arab landowners and paid for it, but what regard was paid to the Arab labourers who were living and working on the land? How many of those landowners were in fact absentees, and how many of the labourers were forced off the land by the settlers?

You say I am misinformed and have misled others. Are you saying that the Women in Black deliberately misled me for their own bias? Every Friday, for nineteen years these Jewish women, now middle-aged and elderly, have stood in the midst of the main shopping area of Tel Aviv with their placards protesting against the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. They have been vilified, harassed and spat upon. After their vigil is over, they put their placards back into plastic bags and go home to prepare the Sabbath meal. They told me of two gross violations of human rights. Palestinian civilians wounded by Israeli forces are treated in Israeli hospitals but are only allowed one relative to visit them – this person cannot leave the hospital grounds even to buy food, so the Women in Black have to bring it. Also, there are 1200 female prisoners and 300 children in a jail outside Tel Aviv – they are allowed one letter every two months and no Palestinian visitors.

In Jerusalem I met a group of Menonites who had come to monitor the demolition of a Palestinian village and to help Palestinian children going to school; the children’s homes were divided from the school by border controls and they had to wait every day for the arbitrary and changeable hours of the opening of the gates. Israeli settlers would descend like marauders from the hill above, to hurl rocks at the Menonites. The day before my arrival, one of the latter, a young Swiss woman, had been badly hurt.

I went to Ramallah to meet a women’s group. In that city the whole infrastructure has collapsed because of Israel’s economic boycott, no wages paid for months to civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses, their debts are mounting and many of them have to rely on relatives in the rural areas for food. Hamas is the only organization to provide anything in the way of welfare: it is as though Israel has deliberately engineered the consequent popularity of Hamas in order to justify its own propaganda. While I was with the women’s group, a phone call came in to tell them that Gaza was completely sealed off and there was no milk for any of the babies there. The sense of desperation and imprisonment is only intensified by the huge wall that has been built between the communities, too high to see over, blocking out the sunlight.

I went to Nazareth, a predominantly Arab location, where I visited “Sawt el-Amel, the Laborer’s Voice.” This group is currently resisting the Wisconsin Plan – the latest example of economic and social exploitation, a pilot project of privatised welfare compulsory for the unemployed in several regions. In case of non-cooperation or work-refusal by a participant, his/her income benefits are cut for one or two months; if the companies do not save the state more than 35% of its welfare expenditures, they are sanctioned. It has devastating effects on the populations in the pilot area, which are made up mainly of Arab citizens and new immigrants from Russian-speaking countries and Ethopia … In Nazareth there is a sharp increase of poverty and social disruption.

I entered Israel from Jordan, where 60% of the population are displaced Palestinian refugees, living in limbo. I visited one of the refugee camps where the people have been living for years, scarcely knowing who they are any more – they can neither go back to their land in Palestine nor are they allowed to integrate as Jordanian citizens. I found that crossing from one country into the other was fraught with uncertainty as the opening and closing of the border is completely arbitrary. I was shocked by the arrogance and ignorant discourtesy of the young soldiers of the Israeli border guard, not only towards Arabs: their treatment in particular of three hundred elderly people from India – a “forgotten tribe” of Indian Jews who had decided to immigrate into Israel – was brutally insulting. I witnessed this. Were the soldiers attempting to misinform me by their behaviour?

On the day of the Aosdána meeting, I received a letter from Israel. The writer – a member of the Coalition of Women for Peace – told me, “If I had to capture the current Israeli mood in two words, they would be ‘national disenchantment.’… Is it any wonder that Israelis have begun to notice that patriotism, integrity, and austerity are only words, and the name of the game is profitability? … The ongoing conflict with the Palestinians no longer fills Israel with a sense of meaning … More and more young men and women are avoiding military service … both those who openly and courageously refuse to show up for the draft,” [i.e. risking jail] “as well as those who find excuses for not being able to serve ... The principle of ending the occupation has prevailed.”

Also, the same day, in the Dublin freesheet, the Herald, a headline from Gaza: “Five die as torrent of sewage swamps town.” This is due to the fact that “local authorities have scant resources. Western donors have halted direct assistance to the Palestinian government and Israel has frozen most tax revenues.”

If you really believe I have been misinformed and am now misleading others, why do you not invite every single woman whom I met in Israel and let them tell you what they said to me. Or are you implying, because we are women, that we have no minds of our own and cannot see what we look at? You have impugned not only my honour and the honour of Irish artists but the honour and integrity of hundreds of women in Israel, Arab and Jew.

Incidentally, my organization Women in Media & Entertainment (which has consultative status at the UN, ESOC) wrote a letter to the Israeli Mission at the United Nations, asking how far you are implementing the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, as adopted at the 4213th meeting of the Security Council on 31st October 2000, for each country to “conduct a study on (1) the impact of armed conflict on women & girls, (2) the role of women in peace-building, and (3) the gender dimensions o0f peace processes and conflict resolutions.” We have not yet had an answer. We were not singling Israel out but sent the same questions to the Missions of Syria, Russia, Iran, Colombia, China, the UK, the USA, Ireland, Angola, Uganda, Sudan and many others. Our theme was “Let the women of the world confront the nations of the world.”

To the Editor, The Irish Times:

Madam,

You report (29th March 07) a successful motion of mine at the Aosdána meeting of the previous day, to the effect that Irish artists should reflect deeply before engaging with state-sponsored Israeli cultural events and should bear in mind the undeniable courage of Israeli artists who oppose their own government’s illegal policies towards the Palestinians. This elicited the following statement from the Israeli Ambassador, “We strongly believe that this decision is fundamentally wrong, unjust, biased, and based on misunderstanding and misinformation of current affairs in the Middle East. It appears that a small number of Aosdána members, holding extremely biased views against Israel, have misled others and imposed their views on the whole organization.”

These words impugn the honour and integrity, not only of myself and those in Aosdána who voted for my motion, but also of scores of women who talked with me in Israel, Palestine and Jordan last year, from such organizations as the Women in Black, Sawt el-Amel, the Women’s Coalition for Peace, the Palestinian Women’s Group in Ramallah and a women’s group in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, as well as numerous academics and writers.

Is the Ambassador saying that because we are women, we have no minds of our own and cannot see what we look at? Is he saying that it is fundamentally wrong even to reflect upon Israel’s policies? We have heard a lot about “fundamentalism” in the Middle East: this is a new brand altogether.

Yours etc.,

Margaretta D’Arcy

On the picket line with the Women in Black
Tel Aviv Nov Friday 24th November. I have been told by an Israeli friend that the Women in Black gather every Friday at the corner of a particular boulevard every Friday between 1pm and 2. This extraordinary group of women has been standing out in public for 19 years, denouncing the illegal occupation by Israel of lands belonging to the Palestinians. Their presence has captured the imagination of women world wide, and there are many groups, in many other countries, of Women in Black. In London women gather every week. In Galway we have held a Women in Black solidarity action: we were joined by some American tourists who were delighted to find us there on the street; in the US they too were part of A Women in Black group. Unfortunately my computer crashed a few years ago, losing all my e-mail contacts including The Women in Black. I knew that they had been nominated for the Nobel Prize last year, so it was with some trepidation that I waited at the intersection between a busy shopping street and the grassy Boulevard. I was a bit worried because I was wearing bright green shoes. The rest of me was all “in Black,” and (if they insisted) I was quite prepared to take the shoes off and just wear my black socks. I arrived early so I could watch the arrive; perhaps I would be able to guess who they would be; surely there would be some heralding, like huge banners appearing a few minutes before the time. But there was no-one who looked in the least likely. I wondered, perhaps I took down the wrong address? Then I saw an elderly woman with a black plastic bag; she leaned it against a tree and took out some homemade cards on sticks. Then another elderly woman joined her. I moved closer. Yes, this was the Women in Black. I needn’t have worried about my bright green shoes. There was nothing at all dogmatic about their garments. Other women joined, and a few men: about fifteen of us in all. A couple of younger ones gave out leaflets, and we stood there. Apart from an elderly man on his bicycle who started an animated conversation, and a woman who barked at me, there was no hostility from passers-by – just a weary resignation. The papers were full of a possible new onslaught –
Some headlines from The Jerusalem Post.

IDF (Israeli Defence Force) plans large-scale Gaza operation. Mulls retaking entire Gaza Strip.
IDF chose not to use Israeli-made cluster bombs in Lebanon war
(instead they used cluster bombs manufactured in the United States)
Peace Now complaint that settlements were built on ‘stolen land’ has government worried.
France authorizes troops to fire at Israeli jets over Lebanon.

Just the day before I had paid a visit to a women’s group in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, getting there by a local bus from outside Old Jerusalem – it was only a half-hour journey. The usual anxieties: would the border be closed? would there be long delays? In fact it was all quite normal and there were no delays. From the bus I could see sparkling high-rise flats on a height; below them was the Wall. After passing a checkpoint, we travelled along inside the wall, which preventing any sun from shining across the street. A menacing, foreboding feeling of entrapment ... Inside the office of the women’s group, on the one hand normality, on the other the knowledge that they could not leave Ramallah. They were just then getting news of the situation inside Gaza: no milk there for the children. While inside Ramallah, the schools were closed and all administration had broken down because the officials hag not been paid – Israel was withholding the legitimate funds to the Palestian authorities. I was told that in the election Hamas had the support of the village women, and why wouldn’t they? Hamas had a good social security policy, which at least kept the women from starving – there was no market for their produce.
In Tel Aviv, as I stood on the Women in Black’s picket line, I watched the citizens go by: they looked as if they too were trapped, locked inside their walls of ignorance and trapped, unable to pass outside their borders. After an hour we went across the street: “We always go for a little refreshment, now join us there.” Aliuyah Strauss & Havla Keller told me about their other work, inside the jail, making contact with the women political prisoners – 120 of them: some of them have children with them. There also 300 minors: 10 of them are girls between 14 & 17. None of them can receive any visitors from the occupied territories. They are allowed to write one letter every two months. Aliuyah and Havla also visit the hospital, where Palestinians who have been injurede by Israeli forces are brought. (In one notorious case, a party of civilians had been shot at whilst picnicking.) Only one relative is allowed to visit, and this relative must stay in the hospital all the time and is not allowed to leave even to buy food. The Women in Black have volunteered to bring food in. While I was on the picket, a young woman came up to me and asked if the weekly picket was still going on. She said that ten years ago she had written her thesis on the Women in Black. I asked her if she had ever come back to support them. “Oh no,” she said, “I’ve finished the thesis and I’m now a PRO for a music company,” and she merrily went her way. Every bit of information from Aliuyah and Havla was given to me in a matter-of- fact way: this was their life. As it was Friday, they had to get home to prepare food for the Sabbath, they had to pick up and look after grandchildren and pick up their husbands – just normal elderly women doing what they can. Aliuyah had just returned from a peace conference in Stockholm. Havla said, “We do what we can, it may not be much. it may not be effective but at least we are here. No formality: whoever turns up is welcome. At times we are attacked. Today was very quiet.” Their very matter-of-factness was moving. So was their humility. “We don’t have any hierarchy or offices.”
Later that evening I was invited to a party. “All the left will be there, you will meet everyone.” I mentioned my experience at the boulevard and the great work the women were doing. They all knew the Women in Black and had at some stage participated in the picket. But their main current preoccupation was the administrative changes going on in the university: their union had organized a shutdown the previous Tuesday in protest against these changes. The university had been closed for an hour. I brought up the question of the boycott of the universities: some supported it, some didn’t. They gave an impression they were powerless – “Whatever we did, who would listen?” When I pushed about their experience in the army (all Jewish Israelis have to do national service), one radical student, who was helping to organize a big rally in defence of Gaza, said that she had been in the intelligence sector and had fortunately not been sent into the West Bank but to the Egyptian border to intercept phone calls, monitoring words like “bombs,” etc. It gave her good experience of military terms which she could use when making speeches to denounce the occupation. I tempted her to break her secrecy oath on my camera, but she refused, saying she owed everything to the Israeli state, her education and her life style, she was basically a very loyal citizen.
I came away convinced that the present Israeli constitution is untenable. At the beginning the Arab community made up 20% of the population which never accepted a Zionist state. They were completely ignored and have been consistently and where they are treated as second-class citizens. Borders are made and may be remade; walls are built, walls can come down. I kept on having a dejavu of life in the seventies in Belfast – the same excuses in the universities, the reality of life on the Falls Road, the military everywhere, the same hustle and bustle of trying to get on with a normal life; in fact it is a glimpse of hell. Somehow the growing calls throughout Western Europe for boycotts, cultural and academic, might arouse the radical left of Tel Aviv.

For information about Women for Women Political Prisoners: --
www.coalitionofwomen.org
gazasiege@yahoo.com