The request came from the State Department. A group of young political leaders from Lebanon would be visiting the United States as guests of our government. They were eager "to have a dialogue," we were told. Would AJC be amenable to receiving them?
We agreed immediately. We have often hosted groups brought to America by the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program and always find these encounters valuable.
Moreover, as an organization that for years has been active in the Arab world, we attach special importance to such meetings, whether public or private, held in New York, North Africa, the Gulf, or elsewhere.
We're always on the lookout for ways to expand points of contact and contribute to the search for peaceful coexistence. Getting together face-to-face has the potential to break down barriers and open minds. It may not be a sure-fire formula, but it certainly beats the absence of contact.
And that's precisely what those eleven Lebanese, all university graduates and all in their twenties, hadn't had to date -- any contact with American Jews, or, as likely, Jews anywhere. Only one had ever visited this country before. Indeed, the whole point of the journey was to introduce them to relevant "current social, political, and economic issues" in the United States.
The day of the meeting came. We prepared the breakfast table and awaited their arrival. The State Department official suddenly appeared, visibly shaken. En route to AJC, he had received a call from the group notifying him that they weren't coming. No further explanation was offered. No apology given. That was that.
Had all the parties come to the same decision? Given the diversity of the group's affiliations -- representing the range, absent Hezbollah, of Lebanon's Balkanized political world -- it's not certain the vote would have been totally lopsided.
In that case, why didn't some come, instead of a total boycott? Given the last-minute nature of the decision, there was no time to replace our meeting with another, so the time allocated was suddenly free. Could it have been intimidation by those strongly opposed to the encounter?
Or was it a decision taken, say, by the Lebanese government, which, having heard of the planned meeting, sent instructions to skip it?
Whatever the case, did the State Department express its displeasure to the eleven participants for their decision? At the very least, the group's behavior was discourteous. Far more, a precious chance had been squandered to advance American interests by fostering dialogue between up-and-coming Lebanese leaders and a relevant American constituency.
In the end, we lost a chance, but, if I may say so, the Lebanese lost a bigger one. After all, we travel to the Arab world (though, regrettably, not Lebanon) and have opportunities to meet with Arab leaders.
On the other hand, these young political activists have no chance to travel to Israel and see a neighboring country with their own eyes.
They have no possibility to meet with Jews in Lebanon, as the community there, like Jewish communities throughout the Arab world, save Morocco and Tunisia, no longer exists.
They have no opportunity to attend a lecture in Beirut offering a Jewish perspective on anything, unless it's by a Holocaust-denying, anti-Israel spokesman. Nor can they buy a book in any store that offers a non-polemical view of Jewish history or Zionism. Nor can they go to a theater and watch a film, even "Fiddler on the Roof" or "Schindler's List," that deals sympathetically with Jewish themes, however remote from the current Arab-Israeli conflict.
And they have no ability to fully understand America's view of the Middle East if they refuse to talk to one of the longest-standing participants in the national -- and indeed, global -- discussion.
Instead, they're fed a daily diet of demonized, distorted, and delusional portrayals of Jews and Israelis back home.
And, of course, it's not unique to Lebanon.
As one telling example, someone I'm close to recently spent several months on a work assignment in a Gulf country. He went with an open mind. He came back shocked. Just about every conversation, he said, whether it was professional or social, included some anti-Semitic reference by his local interlocutors. It almost didn't matter what the topic was, but hatred of Jews somehow always surfaced. Jews, he was told, were seen as responsible for just about every calamity under the sun. Yet, when asked, none of these individuals had ever met a Jew. So, where had they gotten their information? Well, they said, from the local mosque, media, school, and the like.
I have no illusion that one meeting in New York between eleven Lebanese and a handful of American Jews would have changed the world. But I also know that, without such meetings, the chances of any change are virtually nil.
It's so reassuringly easy to harbor deeply-rooted negative views of another group when there's no contact. Let the stereotypes fly. Let the biases reign. Let the hatred flow.
But if we're going to turn conflict in the Middle East into cooperation, as we must, then it begins with dialogue, at least among those who profess commitment to a new era. Dialogue that challenges preconceived assumptions. Dialogue that broadens perspectives. Dialogue that, ultimately, builds links.
Our door at AJC remains wide open. Let's hope the next visiting group chooses to walk through it.
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/21693
Lebanese journalist Brigitte Gabriel: "universities teach hatred of Jews"-
I absolutely want to see peace there, instead of the continual perpetual violence. But one can't deny this hatred the Arabs living in the Middle East are indoctrinated with from their earliest of years, as the Lebanese Journalist and others like her have said. This is what their taught in their Mosques, Maddresa's, University's, and hear see and read on TV, books, newspapers: from Government officials and educators, so you have culture as the journalist points out of hate which is hard to overcome, although she herself after spending time in a Israeli Hospital had her eye's wide open and noticed that what she was taught was hate propaganda. So as the author above states "... they're fed a daily diet of demonized, distorted, and delusional portrayals of Jews and Israelis back home."
" We are the Zionists and are here with a book to take the land you and your families have lived on for over a millennia now. You can walk away peacefully, but if you don't there will be violence and it will be your own fault as you have been warned. We have bribed and begged the necessary world powers to recognise us as moral and just, it's exactly that simple. If you don't go along with it, we will make sure you'll be seen as crazed lunatics for standing in the way of peace. So gather up whatever you can carry and move along now because we the Zionists are moving in just as soon as you get out of the way. You can't argue with us, we don't take kindly to moral reason or matters of law which do not serve our will. We have God on our side and he wants you to be gone."
Count on it.
I also resent that Mr. Harris believes that his organizations rabidly pro-Israel stance in the face of a 60 year occupation is somehow 'America's view of the Middle East'. The idea that the AJC wishes for peaceful co-existence while supporting an occupation and rarely, if ever critiques Israel, is laughable.
Feel free to read: http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=5349131&ct=8627201¬oc=1
In this document, they are quite firm with regards to how Palestinians are impeding the talks, but can only muster vague statements when speaking about settlements, and funny enough, the occupation of the west bank is not even mentioned. They are against any right of return for Palestinians in the West Bank, against the resumption of talks unless Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state and does not think that Lieberman's rabid right wing statements have anything to do with these failed talks. They do not feel that the settlements are a cause for the collapse of the talks and that Iran is doing more damage to the peace talks than Netanyahu. They feel that everyone EXCEPT Israel is to blame. They are following Netanyahu's position to the letter.
How on earth would meeting this organization that parrot's Netanyahu's stances and statements change their minds?
I was stating why they may have refused the invitation. I do think it was rude not to show up, but the AJC is not the group that will change anyone's mind about Israel. It is just more of the same.
The meeting was canceled because the Lebanese don't want to be exposed to different idea. They are comfortable with their narrow world view, and meeting people who might expose them to new ideas might upset their comfortable little world. This is why there is no "A Street" as a counter part to J Street; an organization telling leaders uncomfortable truths to promote peace. Until there is, forget about the Arabs making the compromises necessary for peace.
That's what makes this an asymmetrical quest for peace. To recast an old joke -
Person A: Israel is a democracy. Here you can mount stand outside the Knesset and say "Israel is a racist imperialist state!"
Person B: Ah, my friend, in Gaza, we too can stand outside the Hamas headquarters and say "Israel is a racist imperialist state!"
The main point is that prejudice is almost always the vilest in people who have not encountered 'the other'. Anti-Muslim feelings are most strong amongst those that have never met a Muslim. Anti-Jewish feelings are most strong amongst those who have not met a Jewish person. And that goes double for those living in countries whose media, for whatever reason (justifiable or not) are pushing stereotypes.
It's easy to hate if you don't get out of your bubble of righteous indignation.
I am quite sure all the Israeli leaders have met muslims, and that all the Lebanese/Palestinian leaders have met jews.
Sometimes there are actual policies that people disagree on that cause the fighting. Infact blind cultural hatred is rarely the case, its usually about policy
http://www.meforum.org/263/why-jews-fled-the-arab-countries
"COORDINATING A PROGRAM OF EXPULSION
In a key address before the Political Committee of the U.N. General Assembly on November 14, 1947, just five days before that body voted on the partition plan for Palestine, Heykal Pasha, an Egyptian delegate, made the following key statement:
The United Nations . . . should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Moslem countries. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries an anti-Semitism even more difficult to root out than the anti-Semitism which the Allies were trying to eradicate in Germany. . . If the United Nations decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for the massacre of a large number of Jews.
Particularly noteworthy is that although Heykal Pasha spoke at the United Nations in his capacity as a representative of Egypt, he continuously mentioned the Jews "in other Muslim countries" and "all the Arab states," suggesting a level of coordination among the Arab governments.
Another indication that Arab rulers coordinated the expulsion of Jews from their terrorites comes from a Beirut meeting one and a half years later of senior diplomats from all the Arab States. By this time, March 1949, the Arab states had already lost the first Arab-Israeli war; they now used this defeat to justify an expulsion that had been officially proclaimed before the war even began.”
I don't know why there's this myth that until the creation of Israel, Jews and Arabs held hands and sung kumbaya. It's well documented fact.
Now, that being said, I also don't buy into this whole notion that Jews and Arabs can't live together peacefully. I have many Arab and Muslim friends (including Palestinians) and we are able to discuss the issues like adults as opposed to various leaders in the communities.
Yet not nearly as effectively as a few impertinent pertinent questions can.
“it certainly beats the absence of contact”
Amen to that brother. Yet I still suspect a mind-meld may manage more than mere mumblings.
“They have no opportunity to attend a lecture in Beirut offering a Jewish perspective on anything, unless it's by a Holocaust-denying, anti-Israel spokesman”.
I wondered how many sentences it would take, before you reverted to that same old script Dave.
“an open mind”.
I doubt you would recognise one, if you chanced to trip over it.
“I have no illusion that one meeting in New York between eleven Lebanese and a handful of American Jews would have changed the world”.
Oh but it could have David. If only there had been someone at hand to challenge you, with the questions whose answers you are all in denial about.
“Let the stereotypes fly. Let the biases reign. Let the hatred flow”.
Let the Neb (Internet-web) connect.
“Dialogue that, ultimately, builds links”.
As opposed to illegal settlements?
“Our door at AJC remains wide open”.
Though our Neb connection remains inexplicably down?
To quote an Israeli (I know, horrible, horrible horrible): You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. If you don't meet them, what hope is there?
Saying that discussion would be better assumes that the topics that would have been discussed would not have radicallized the opposing sides even further, and there is nothing in the article that allows us to make any such assessment.
Perhaps if you actually read what Harris wrote, it would be easier to understand.
The young Lebanese REQUESTED the meeting. The AJC agreed. At the last minute, most likely under pressure from their government, the Lebanese canceled the meeting.
The United States is not an honest broker. It is a staunch ally of Israel.
These circumstances inhibit dialogue, and when it takes place between third parties of good-will, it reduces them to talking shops which, however, well-meaning, can achieve little. They tend to become facilitators of aid to fix the cruel wounds of war and oppression. And dangerous is this territory as it is very easy - unwittingly - to become an enabler of that oppression and illegality.
Oh, West Bank economy grew by 8% with all that aid. Things can't be so bad. Wish we were growing at 8%! Then the illegal building begins again.
the US is not an honest broker . .. the only way to get israel to really negotiate is via crippling international sanctions . . . .
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1001/1224280078941.html
"Israeli annexation of Jordan Valley bleeding Palestinians"
Irish Times - Oct. 1/10
EXCERPT:
"Since occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, Israel has regarded the valley as its eastern border. Israel says it would never withdraw because the valley, 30 per cent of the West Bank, provides strategic depth and a buffer zone. Over the past 43 years Israel has planted 36 settlements and half a dozen military camps here.
"These assets also give Israel control of the valuable resources of the valley which Palestinians insist must belong to their future state."
"The Israeli settlements we drive past are small clusters of pastel painted houses with steep roofs resembling homes pictured in coffee table books about Hungary. Ashraf Khatib of the Palestinian Negotiations Support Unit said 50 per cent of the land has been allocated to the 9,000 settlers.
"This has been achieved by denying Palestinians the rights to build, plant and graze livestock. Nature reserves and the military have taken 45 per cent."
The Lebanon war, Gaza, the flotilla raid, the occupation itself all should be opposed by anyone who cares about Israel.
Or else Israel will be facing Al Qaeda in Gaza and wishing Hamas was back.
Of course, taking your logic to the next level: Couldn't you say that the PLO is responsible for the creation of Hezbollah, since it was their actions that led to Israel's intervention in 1982? Or is that going too far?