May 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Fom the editor's desk

At Stanford University, April 19, demonstrators and counter-demonstrators join ranks. At the end of Palm Drive, a rally began with about 150 demonstrators in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and 200 counter-demonstrators, on opposite sides of the road. Rabbi Michael Lerner spoke criticizing the Israeli regime. He also criticized the Palestinian Authority for the use of violence without negotiation. Many counter-demonstrators booed Lerner before he spoke, but after a while, some began to applaud him. Later, there was a call from organizers not to replicate the conflict, but to join and sing together for peace. The two demonstrations then merged, and Israeli and Palestinian flags flew side by side as the merged group sang "Od Yavo' Shalom Aleinu" ["Peace will come to us"]. Peter Maiden's photograph shows two Stanford dorm mates, Jared Cohen and Tarek Hammam. (From Jewish Peace News (JPN), a service provided by A Jewish Voice for Peace (www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org).

We put an optimistic photograph on the cover of Peacework this month. We would have said it was staged by some feel-good central casting crew, were it not for reliable witnesses. Demonstrators on opposite sides of a metaphorically-named Palm Drive at Stanford University did the unthinkable--they actually listened to Michael Lerner's speech, thought about what was said, found common ground.

Our email these days reads like an encyclopedia of catastrophe. Observers--civilian and governmental, Palestinian and Israeli and international--repeat an appalling story of deliberate brutality and destruction and unspeakable grief. That phrase--an appalling story of deliberate brutality--is absolutely true of the suicide bombings of Israeli civilians. We have not catalogued the Israeli suffering here because it is well-documented by the US media. Our job at Peacework is to pay attention to the under-reported part of events. We still believe in that hopelessly naive and outdated principle--a level playing field. Thus our choices of material for this month.

To begin, we do hear many voices naming a way forward. We've brought you a few: women in Israel and Palestine; US rabbinical students; heroic Israeli "Refuseniks"; and a careful, moderate Jimmy Carter saying, astonishingly, that the US should cut off military aid.

Next, we try to fathom the suicides and listen to the voices of people trying to stay alive in places where the authorities at check-points don't want reporters or internationals to go. Uri Avnery and Edward Said, two of the best analysts writing about the Middle East, talk of Sharon's motives. Ramzi Kysia and Ted Glick move us significantly forward--to changing course, and to considering the efficacy of revolutionary nonviolent resistance.

Then, since this is Peacework, there's a box on how you can help.

The April 20 demonstration in Washington was not just about the Middle East, not a "Pro-Palestinian rally," despite what the media reported. The issues ranged from Afghanistan to Colombia to Iraq, from the World Court to the World Bank. While most who traveled to Washington did so with a broad range of concerns, Palestine, at this moment, logically took front row. The A-20 mobilization provides an instructive case study in Movement organizing, the profound difficulties of working in coalition, the fragility of nonviolence in act and speech. We are glad to have veteran War Resisters League activist David McReynolds' report, written in haste right after the event. It matters that we try to understand what went on behind the scenes as we head into the next months and years of work to salvage those home values--dare we even use the words these days?--respect, equality, democracy, justice, in the face of state terror, the bulk of it our own.

Cynthia McKinney charts out the territory; we're tempted to move to Georgia so we can vote for her. The present Administration's rogue-state policies put people in danger, not only internationally but also down the block. Holly Sklar paints one example and points out that there are many like it. We've gathered some tools for analyzing the military budget and understanding so-called welfare reform.

According to Marc Cooper, writing in The Nation, when Gabriel Garcia Márquez met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez earlier in his tenure, the Colombian writer was "overwelmed by the feeling that I had just been traveling with two opposing men. One to whom the caprices of fate had given an opportunity to save his country; the other, an illusionist who could pass into the history books as just another despot." Once again, what we see in the morning news or hear from government spokespersons, is wildly at odds with what we read on the Internet. Given the choice, we've opted for the less mainstream analyses.

Don't know what your Sunday paper said today, but ours reported that the Pentagon is very close to starting its own undeclared war on Iraq. A Quaker in meeting this morning told us that he had heard from friends of his in Iraq asking him to send vitamins for the children "before the bombing starts." It's terrifying to consider that either of these events--a Pentagon-declared war, a child under bombers--could possibly come true. More comforting to hope they are simply deranged imaginings from central casting.

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