Freedom, Security, Peace?

There were literally hundreds of meetings, seminars, workshops and plenaries taking place at the ESF, many of them with titles which amounted to little more than slogans, while others read like the title to some dry academic thesis. Nonetheless a few stuck out when reading the programme - which stretched to 70-odd pages - and demanded that I attend. One such event was a seminar on Saturday entitled, "Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians: Fighting Racism, Fighting the Occupation," organised by European Jews for a Just Peace.

The seminar was addressed by various speakers who had all been involved in efforts to bring Jews and Arabs together in pursuit of peace. Two speakers from France discussed their efforts to bring together a Jewish organisation and one made up Moroccan immigrants with not inconsiderable success. Another was an Israeli who had lost their sister in a suicide bombing and who spoke on behalf of the Bereaved Parents Forum. A women from the Jerusalem Women's Centre and Al-Quds University recounted her experiences of working to bring together women from both sides of the divide. A further women, a "Palestinian-Israeli" (although an Arab and an Israeli citizen she strongly rejected the term Arab Israeli) spoke about her experiences working in Ta'ayush (the name comes from the Arabic for living together) a campaign group made up of Arabs and Israelis.

The speaker from the Bereaved Parents Forum was particularly interesting. The organisation was set up in 1994 and has made various efforts to end the conflict. They have provided phones to allow Israelis and Palestinians to talk for free, enabling 1 million conversations to take place. They have also carried out blood transfers, using blood collected from one side to help the other (I think this went both ways, but I'm not entirely sure). The speaker also revealed that he was a member of Courage to Refuse, one of the organisations supporting refuseniks within the Israeli Defence Force, and called for people to come from around the world and help end the conflict and the occupation.

The speaker from Ta'ayush offered another interesting perspective. The organisation has some 300 active members, from both communities, although 70% were Jewish. They did, however, have a large email list. Their demands were of particular interest, as they called for freedom for both peoples, security and peace and were clear that they must be achieved in that order. This seems to me much more realistic than the demands of Sharon that security come first and that everything will then follow at some indeterminate point in the future, an approach which leaves the whole process under the control of the extremists.

The question and answer section was actually quite constructive and avoided descending into sloganeering and shouting. One contribution came from a refusenik who called for support for a female refusenik about to face the Supreme Court. This is presumably Laura Milo, details on whom are available here. Another said that they were seeking to hold a meeting bringing together refuseniks from the French campaign in Algeria with Israeli refuseniks and suggested something similar might be possible with those refusing to serve in the occupation of Iraq, a very interesting idea which might merit looking into.