Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January-February 2009, page 61

Waging Peace

An American Jewish Woman Finds Occupation Unacceptable

POLITICAL ACTIVIST and author Anna Baltzer spoke to a full house at the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation Conference on Oct. 25 at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC—and it was obvious from the start that she struck a chord with her audience. Baltzer has toured the United States spreading the word about what she saw during her eight months in the West Bank, as well as promoting her book which documents that journey, Witness in Palestine: a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories (available from the AET Book Club).

She went to Palestine to see for herself the conditions for the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, Baltzer explained. What she found was very different from what she had learned growing up a Jew in America. “I didn’t want to believe it,” she said. “I wanted to believe that Israel was being virtuous and the Arabs in the area were the ones preventing peace.” However, she discovered, this was not the truth.

Baltzer emphasized that there is a clear difference between a Jewish Zionist and a non-Zionist Jew. “Do not associate Israel’s occupation with Judaism,” she said with full conviction. “Don’t confuse Israel’s actions with Jewish justice.”

Social justice is a cornerstone of the Jewish faith, she reminded her listeners. “To speak out is not anti-Semitic; it is in line with Jewish social justice,” she said.

She then asked the crowd to imagine Washington, DC under a full military occupation, as the West Bank is today. Imagine well-kept highways for the use of Jews only, while Muslims and Christians are forced to travel over other, neglected roads, or hundreds of roadblocks set up everywhere, between neighborhoods, preventing Muslims and Christians from having any semblance of a normal life—earning a living, receiving an education, enjoying a social or spiritual life. “Everything is affected when you can’t move,” she noted.

Baltzer then discussed the other side of the story. In a part of the world where a Palestinian farmer whose family has lived on his land for thousands of years is forbidden to reach that piece of land, Israel grants her, as a Jew, full freedom of movement. She then pointed to a photo of an Israeli billboard beside a West Bank road urging Israelis to move to the illegal settlement of Ariel, which now has a population of more than 18,000. The Hebrew slogan, she told her audience, translated as “Now More Than Ever.” The ad went on to promise each Jewish person who settled in Ariel 100,000 Israeli shekels ($25,000).

The majority of Jews moving to these settlements were not doing so to push the Palestinians off their land, Baltzer explained, but were searching for a good deal, and a housing subsidy from the Israeli government—courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. “The Israeli government should be held accountable, not the fanatics,” she argued. “Ideological settlers are in the minority.”

Noting that the Israeli government is always talking about its security, Baltzer asked why, if Israel is so worried about the state and its people’s security, it is encouraging and even paying its citizens to move onto the enemy’s land where they are not very safe?

The American government is giving Israel more than $10 billion a year, Baltzer reminded her audience. This means that, as Americans, they are assisting Israel in these violations and that every American has a direct responsibility to know how his or her taxes dollars are being spent. “People say ”˜I don’t want to get involved, it’s too controversial,’” she said with some disgust. “You know what? If you are paying taxes, you are already involved.”

Baltzer said she thinks the U.S. media are the reason the American public is so uninformed about the issue. To prove her point, she showed the August 2004 cover of an international edition of Newsweek, which a friend bought in Germany, with the headline: “The Plight of the Palestinians.” She then showed the cover of that week’s U.S. edition, purchased in Chicago, in which the cover story about Palestinians is nowhere to be found.

She didn’t want her audience to feel bad about the situation, Baltzer said. Instead, she hoped to encourage them to act and, through their action, change the situation.

Baltzer’s presentation is available on DVD. For more information visit <www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com>.

—Jamal Najjab