September 20, 2004: Terrorism and the threat of terrorism directed at Americans and American interests abroad are hot topics on the Presidential campaign circuit. The candidates' military credentials and toughness of character are measured for fit in warrior's armor. There is much ballyhoo about promoting democratic reforms of Arab countries, targeting aid to bolster civil society, pledging to fight against anti-Semitism around the world, and eliminating the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran. Arguments are made about strategy in Iraq and whether the war on terror is winnable.

But no word is heard from either of the contenders — George Bush and John Kerry — that links the threat of Islamic-militant terrorism to the U.S. embrace of Israel and Prime Minister Sharon, while the assaults on the Palestinians, their leadership and their rights are broadcast throughout the region. It appears that the only grievance against the United States that all Islamic militants, as well as their moderate communities, agree upon is the Palestinian issue.

Of course, the candidates say they would like a peaceful Middle East. They would like to see Israelis living in security and Palestinians with a state. But as M.J. Rosenberg of Israel Policy Forum wrote in his opinion column on August 27, "Such high-minded thoughts are not the main reasons that America needs progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It needs it because every day the conflict continues, America's standing in the Muslim world deteriorates and the threat of terrorism directed at Americans and America's interests increases."

Vacillating Leadership

The Bush Administration has talked the talk, while walking backwards. The President declared his commitment to a viable Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, but his actions and failures to act belie his words. A recent example was his mimed wink and nod to Prime Minister Sharon, as Israeli officials announced new construction of more than 1,500 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. (Reports of the number of units vary from 1,000-announced in late August-to the 2004 total of 2,167 housing units.) 

Israelis justify the construction as required by "natural growth" of the settler population. But the construction plans violate the Road Map, which explicitly bans all new building, including for "natural growth." By failing to condemn the Israeli violation, the President has again outraged Palestinians and the Arab world, validating the charge made by Arab terrorists that the United States does not really want a viable Palestinian state.  

MIFTAH, the Palestinian NGO founded by Hanan Ashrawi, in a web editorial on August 25, asked: "What exactly is the policy of this administration with concerns to settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?"

The State Department spokesman Adam Ereli did nothing to clarify that policy in the news briefing (read at State.gov under daily press briefings) on August 23: "We are currently involved in technical talks with the government of Israel in an effort to clarify their intentions with respect to settlements." A reporter followed up with, "Well, there are bulldozers out there. Aren't the intentions fairly clear?"

Even though pressed by the reporters, Ereli refused to criticize the current settlement activity, or even to define "settlement activity." He  continued to refer to the President's June 21, 2002 speech, that, "Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop — that is the policy of the United States."

The MIFTAH editorial concludes by writing that the President "needs to know that this sort of sway in policy is not a harmless game similar to yoyo, but rather a question very sensitive to Palestinian and Arab psyche."

There was scant reporting and reading of settlement-doings during the August doldrums, when the photogenic Olympics and the Republican convention filled the screens and newspapers. Nevertheless, The New York Times accused the administration of "sliding from dangerous passivity to outright obstruction" in an August 24 editorial entitled "Folly in the West Bank." The editorial posited that "The Bush Administration is driving American credibility as a Middle East peacemaker to a new low with its support for a major expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank."

The political reasons for supporting Israeli policies are two- fold. First, the President's acquiescence to Sharon in late August was meant to shore up Sharon's position within the Likud party and improve chances for approval of a withdrawal from Gaza as well as weaken settler opposition to that plan. (This is at odds with Secretary of State Powell's comments at the Quartet's press conference of May 4, which stressed that the key issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians must be negotiated by both parties.)

The second reason was explained by The Washington Post, in an August 25 editorial, in remarkably disparaging terms. "The fact that the White House has taken this position at a time when Mr. Bush is seeking support from pro-Israel voters in Florida and other closely contested states will raise reasonable questions about whether there are any grounds for his position other than electoral pandering."

Surely, one might think, the President's opponent, Sen. John Kerry, would jump on this show of Bush's vacillating and weak leadership, his undercutting of the Quartet allies (United Nations, European Union, Russian Federation) who formulated the Road Map. Well, think again, more cynically this time. Instead of challenging the President's April 14 concessions without negotiations, candidate Kerry said that he recognizes that "a number of settlement blocks will likely become a part of Israel."  A Blind Eye on Jerusalem

Daniel Seidemann is an Israeli lawyer in Jerusalem who monitors settlement building in and around Jerusalem. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post on August 26, he asserts, "It is not only that the current administration has disengaged from micromanagement of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. The Bush Administration is turning a blind eye to Israel's disingenuous representations regarding settlement expansion."

Seidemann reports that Caterpillar earthmovers are cutting into the terrain as the first step of the plan known as E-1. E-1 will create a continuous built-up area connecting Maleh Adumin, a settlement of 31,000 residents due east of the city, to Jerusalem. He writes that E-1 will cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank, "virtually ruling out the possibility of East Jerusalem ever becoming the national seat of the Palestine." If implemented, the plan "will render nearly impossible the creation of a sustainable Palestinian state, leaving only the default option: the one-state binational solution."

The E-1 plan has been around for years, unused. Until now, successive U.S. administrations have made it clear, by "discrete, nonpartisan diplomacy" that implementation of E-1 would not be tolerated. Seidemann writes that, "Jerusalem is interpreting the messages it is receiving from Washington, their style and substance, as a green light to proceed."

E-1 is one of a number of plans to "line" the separation barrier being erected around Jerusalem and its environs with new settlements. "Dovetailed with settlement activity," Seidman writes, the separation barrier "threatens to create a critical mass of political fact that further undermines the feasibility of the two-state solution."

New Relevance for Geneva Conventions

The ruling by the International Court of Justice upped the ante when it declared that the separation barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank-along with nearly everything else Israel has built there- is in violation of international law. Even though the ICJ ruling was rejected by Israel and widely criticized, Israeli jurists recognized that the ruling could lead to international sanctions. Israel's attorney general Menachem Mazuz recommended in late August that Israel "thoroughly reexamine" applying the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories. The Associated Press reported on August 26 that Mazuz's team of legal experts recommended in a report to Sharon that the "government seriously consider adopting the Geneva Convention."

Israeli writer and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, wrote in Haaretz on August 26, "Suddenly, the Israel government's top legal advisor admits that the Israel-haters may have been right — the legislative and legal system that determined, and determines, the lives and fates of millions, and which provided the legal underpinnings for the de-facto annexation of the territories and the establishment of the settlements and the fence, is illegal in terms of international law."

The Fourth Geneva Convention lays out the responsibilities of an occupying power toward civilians under its control. (The document's prohibition of torture, and requirements for the treatment of prisoners have recently been in the U.S. news as abuses of prisoners were revealed in Iraq.) Israel, though it adopted the Convention, has refused its application to the territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, saying there was no recognized sovereignty over those lands.

The Convention is meant to protect occupied peoples from torture, humiliation and unnecessary harm, and guarantee them access to education, health care and other services. There is specific prohibition against an occupying power moving its own citizens onto occupied territory. Israel has never wanted to admit that the lands it conquered are occupied. Sharon's supporters were stunned last year when he declared that the more than 3 million Palestinians were a population living under occupation, and suggested that controlling them was ultimately harmful to Israel. Down the Road

There are pieces in place that make it possible, maybe even likely, that the President in 2005 will engage in an Israeli-Palestinian peace effort with new vigor and political will. Of great significance is the revived recognition of the relevance of the Geneva Conventions, along with judicial rulings from the International Court of Justice and the Israeli Supreme Court. The Geneva Accords and the "Peoples' Voice" campaigns of 2003 provide models for an imaginative and bold new initiative.

As the political campaigns dominate both public and political dialogue and debate, advocacy on behalf of issues becomes particularly difficult. This is especially so with Israeli-Palestinian issues where the Presidential candidates, and most Congressional candidates, want to avoid raising any controversy with pro-Israel supporters. Even so, the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue unabated and President Bush's words and acts relative to the conflict continue to have global impact. Advocates for peace and justice must not be silenced by partisan campaigning, but might adapt their advocacy to accommodate the season. Contact the White House Comments Line: The Administration must not be allowed to conclude that its failure to block Israel from expanding settlements slipped by unnoticed by Christian supporters of peace and justice. PCUSA advocates are asked to call 202-456-1111 with a concise message such as: I call to register my disappointment that the President is not blocking Israel from building new housing in West Bank settlements. The President has said he supports a two-state solution to the conflict, but his words and actions make a viable Palestinian state impossible. Palestinian suffering and the ongoing occupation of their land is a major reason for the hatred of the United States that fuels terrorism.

Public Opinion Advocacy

Radio talk shows, letters-to-the-editor, public and Sunday school forums, and informal discussions are good venues to raise issues. This does not require expressing a partisan preference. The charge of inconsistency or "flip-flopping" on the issues is a tactic of both Presidential candidates. In the context of those charges, insert awareness that neither Bush or Kerry are charging their opponent with flip-flopping yet their expressed support for Israeli-Palestinian peace is at odds with their pledges to not put pressure on Israel. The war against terror is another hot campaign topic. Both candidates pledge to fight the war on terrorism, yet neither is willing to say the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict fuels hatred of America nor makes a commitment of leadership to resolve the conflict. On the contrary, the presidential contenders cast the U.S. and Israel as partner victims of terrorism. Candidate Kerry says "We are not secure while Israel, the one true democracy in the region, remains the victim of an unrelenting campaign of terror." General Assembly: Strongly urges the United States to take seriously its leadership role to begin a peace initiative that will end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza,  and East Jerusalem and fulfill the stated goal of a two-state settlement based on the pre-1967 boundaries as directed by UNSC 242. (215th General Assembly, 2003, Part II, H, p. 38)

c. Urges the United States government to balance the use of the military option to deter terrorism with increased investment in programs that can transform and reduce the root causes of terrorism across the developing world. (216th General Assembly, 2004, p. 22 in July/August) 

Written by Corinne Whitlatch
Churches for Middle East Peace