Palestinians & the Peace Movement
I was talking today with someone from Workmen’s Circle, a progressive Jewish organization.
They support “A stable two-state solution: a universally recognized State of Israel and a similarly recognized Palestinian State. Towards this end, there should be public promulgation and public acceptance by the Palestinian National Authority by Israel, and by all Arab states of the formula: ‘full normalization of Arab-Israeli relations and full peace in return for final agreement on territorial issues.’
Seems straightforward enough. Yet some tag them as Zionist, while they may look with suspicion upon those, say, with pro-Palestinian banners at a protest – as happened last night in L.A. Henry Kissinger and Shimon Peres were speaking in Universal City. Workmen’s Circle called the protest. However they only wanted to protest Kissinger, while others, notably ANSWER, also protested Peres and the plight of Palestinians. Some sharp words were exchanged. (These sharp words, by the way, were exchanged over the din of bullhorns from hard Right Christians who were happily informing us we were all going to Hell).
Some ask; why can’t the Left come together on the Palestinian issue? As if this is an issue that just splits the Left. It’s not. Rather, it is an issue that crosses all manner of political, religious, and ethnic boundaries. There are multitudes of players here, all with their own agendas. Some may be nations, others may be underground cells. More than a few on all sides want to obliterate the opposition. So, it seems myopic to blame the Left for not being able to solve this when no one else can either.