[WCUSP] Gideon Spiro's response to One Voice translated into English_please distribute widely - Paula Abrams

[yvonne simmons]

> 
> More on "One Voice" from Gideon Spiro - via Dorothy
> Naor of New Profile.  Naturally, Gideon Spiro is not
> a Woman in Black but his comments are enlightening.
> 
> Paula
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Dorothy 
> 
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> If none of the other arguments that have been voiced
> convince you to think twice before joining or
> supporting the One Voice endeavor, perhaps Gideon
> Spiro's reasons will.
> 
> Best, Dorothy
> 
> -----------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> Oct9.07 Gideon Spiro’s response to One Voice
> translated
> 
>  
> 
> Greetings to all,
> 
> Below is my email response to ONE VOICE on September
> 18 this year regarding its invitation requesting me
> to participate in the event on this coming October
> 18.  
> 
> Gideon
> 
> ----------
> 
> Greetings,
> 
>  
> 
> I have read your manifesto, and I presume that your
> intentions are good, for after all, what could be
> better than ending the conflict between the two
> peoples.  The problem is  that your good intentions
> neutralize you—create what is known as trying to
> drive to a destination in neutral gear.
> 
>  
> 
> Your remarks regarding “the extremists on both
> sides” in the name of “the moderate majority”
> presumes symmetry between occupied and occupier, and
> is therefore a prescription for failure.  For there
> is no symmetry between the settlers and settlements
> in the occupied territories (which are war crimes
> according to the Geneva and Rome conventions) and
> Palestinian opposition to the occupation.  There is
> no symmetry between the “moderate majority” in
> Israel that refuses to return to the June 4, 1967
> armistice line, and which supports at most a
> non-contiguous dispersed Palestinian state under
> Israeli control, and the Palestinian moderate
> majority that insists on Israel going back to the
> other side of the Green Line, the dismantling of all
> the settlements, and a just solution to the refugee
> problem.  There is no symmetry between the Israeli
> occupation force that has been brutally persecuting
> Palestinians for 40 years, and those who struggle
> against it.  
> 
>  
> 
> I read the list of names of Israelis who support
> you, and of the organizations that joined you as
> member organizations and find that there is no
> escape from concluding that you’ve fallen into the
> trap of being all-embracing.
> 
>  
> 
> For example, MK Gila Finkelstein from the Hamafdal
> party who supports settlers, settlements, and the
> policies of occupation and apartheid that Israel
> carries out in the territories, can she be
> considered moderate?  Or again, MK Ephraim Sneh, who
> until recently was Deputy Minister of Defense and
> responsible for the collective punishment of
> Palestinians, for orders to kill without trial
> (targeted killings, assassinations, as the
> occupation terms them), who was responsible for the
> killing of children and women--is he moderate? 
> 
>  
> 
> Again, the Likud and Shas youth who joined you
> support the occupation, the apartheid wall, and
> collective punishment.  Is there any common ground
> between them and Meretz Youth? 
> 
>  
> 
> Your desire to embrace all, including
> contradictories, results in the fact that not once
> in your texts does the word ‘occupation’ appear, as
> if there were no Israeli occupation.  Your texts
> likewise omit the words ‘human rights abuses,’ which
> are integral to the occupation.
> 
>  
> 
> I consider myself to be a very moderate person; I am
> a member of the Association for Human Rights [an
> Israeli Org.] and of Amnesty International, and make
> the Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in
> December 1948 (one of the lessons derived from the
> Holocaust) the compass for my acts.  But in today’s
> Israel of Olmert, Netanyahu, and Lieberman, my
> attitude is deemed radical.  
> 
>  
> 
> In the Israel of the 21st century, even pacifist
> Albert Einstein is a radical.  Therefore, my
> recommendation to you is to produce a manifesto in
> the spirit of what I have said here, even if it
> means that you have to reduce the number of people
> and organizations that create your umbrella.
> > _______________________________________________
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