01-2003

The Church and Israel

Solidarity with Israel, or with the Palestinians?

by Axel Reimann and Burkhard Weitz

Chrismon magazine presents a discussion between two very different personalities. Manfred Lahnstein, 65, is president of the German-Israeli Society. As moderator of the Board of Supervisors of Haifa University, he makes regular trips to Israel. Julia Deeg, 21, became known for enduring 33 days in Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah when it was under siege by the Israeli army.

CHRISMON: Mr. Lahnstein, what personal experience do you most associate with Israel?

LAHNSTEIN: My visit to the Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, in 1966. I was born in 1937, so I was then 29. We had heard almost nothing in school about recent German history, and we didn’t know any Jews. There weren’t any left. Then I came to Yad Vashem, an incredibly simple and impressive space. There were the tablets with the names of the concentration camps, and the flame in the centre, that was all. But the room suddenly took hold of me. I fainted, I broke down.

CHRISMON: Ms. Deeg, you were in Israel for the first time in March 2002. You survived 33 days in the headquarters of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, surrounded by Israeli soldiers - a rather unusual first visit.

DEEG: Well, it wasn’t planned that way. I had gone there for ten days with my mother. The Israeli army invasion came while we were meeting with international peace activists in Ramallah. I had never experienced anything like that. Gunfire, tanks, aeroplanes and helicopters dropping things, explosions everywhere. At some point we ran to Arafat’s headquarters to help the people who had been wounded there.

CHRISMON: After four days, your mother left Arafat’s headquarters. Why did you stay there?

DEEG: I was afraid that if I went too, the 370 Palestinians left behind in the building would all simply be shot. Most of them were civilians who worked there.

CHRISMON: According to a poll by EMNID, 73 percent of Germans do not think Israel’s harsh actions against the Palestinians are justified. Politicians are criticising Israel openly. Should we as Germans be criticising Israel?

LAHNSTEIN: Of course we may criticise Israeli policies, but only if we obey certain rules. I consider it unfair for us to concentrate criticism one-sidedly on Israel. I would also consider it unfair to criticise Palestine one-sidedly. That’s just bar parlour politics. Our criticism should also be formulated with the reserve appropriate for intelligent outsiders. If we go to Italy and don’t like something there, we are polite about it. And, finally, it must be constructive criticism.

CHRISMON: What about the 73 percent?

LAHNSTEIN: The reality is being communicated by the media, and unfortunately Israel is losing the war of images on all fronts. This happens when we see, on one side, a Palestinian mother standing there with her child, and on the other an Israeli soldier with reflecting sunglasses and a huge helmet. For decades Israel was David and the Arab countries were Goliath. Now the entire Near East conflict has narrowed down to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and there it is the Palestinians who are David. And people tend to be on David’s side rather than Goliath’s.

DEEG: I don’t see Israel as losing the war of images. However, in Germany the criticism of Israel is linked with a debate on anti-Semitism in which the participants are not concerned with either anti-Semitism or the Near East, but rather are trying to get into the spotlight themselves. Both sides are playing this game: you are either for Israel or for Palestine. There is no middle ground. At that level I don’t want to be involved in the discussion.

CHRISMON: So far, the two of you seem to be very much in agreement. Ms. Deeg, have you ever been accused of anti-Semitism because of what you have done for the Palestinians?

DEEG: No. I fight against human rights violations and against anti-Semitism. I grew up with the discussion of National Socialism; as a child, I read the diaries of Anne Frank. I fight against racism, fascism and discrimination.

CHRISMON: But aren’t you on the side of the Palestinian David?

DEEG: I’m not on anybody’s side unconditionally. I am unconditionally Julia. That may mean being a different Julia tomorrow from the one I am today. I always take a new decision as to where I stand.

CHRISMON: Mr. Lahnstein, as a member of the older generation, are your ideas about Israel different from those of Ms. Deeg?

LAHNSTEIN: Since my first journey there I have experienced all the different aspects of the Near East conflict. Over time, one gains a lot of experience and factual knowledge. My picture of the conflict will be more complete than that of a young person like Ms. Deeg. However, first impressions are very influential. In case of any doubt, my heart is always on the side of the victims. There are always victims and perpetrators on both sides.

DEEG: Aren’t the perpetrators victims as well - and aren’t victims also perpetrators, on both sides? Israeli soldiers, but also Palestinian suicide bombers, are victims of circumstances.

LAHNSTEIN: In the extreme case of suicide bombers, I don’t know whether to call them victims or perpetrators. Under what conditions would young people throw their lives away like that? We have to find a way out of this psychological tragedy of fear, anxiety and horror, where human beings’ reactions aren’t rational.

DEEG: It can’t work to combat desperate people by making them even more desperate.

LAHNSTEIN: I agree with that.

CHRISMON: Which are more desperate, the Israelis or the Palestinians?

LAHNSTEIN: There is desperation on both sides.

DEEG: On the Palestinian side, there is not only pressure from outside. The Autonomous Authority, which isn’t really autonomous because it complies with Israel’s interests, puts pressure on Palestinians who are trying to create democratic structures. Then there is the Islamist group, Hamas, which doesn’t have many members but a terrible influence inside Palestine.

LAHNSTEIN: But there are also a lot of Palestinians who are struggling for democracy, the rule of law and human rights among their own people. I know quite a few such.

DEEG: There are also Israelis fighting for human rights in Israel.

LAHNSTEIN: Israel doesn’t have to stand accused in that area. Israel is a democracy and a government of laws, where human rights are respected.

DEEG: I don’t agree. The Israeli Court of Justice has allowed physical force to be used against prisoners. That means torture.

LAHNSTEIN: No, it doesn’t mean torture. The Court of Justice has drawn very narrow restrictions on physical force.

DEEG: I’ve met people who have had their skin burned, wounded, with cigarettes.

LAHNSTEIN: Now, now!

DEEG: I didn’t go there with these ideas already in my head. I was there when a hospital was attacked by tanks. Why is the Israeli army allowed to destroy civilian buildings and shoot the people who run out?

LAHNSTEIN: No, of course they can’t justify that. But if we look only at what is going on at present in the Palestinian autonomous territories, we don’t get a complete picture. We have to consider what happened in the 1990s. You were talking about the health care and educational situation of the Palestinians. Look at what Arafat and his people did in these areas - practically nothing.

DEEG: Arafat is not ”the Palestinians”. Arafat does plenty of things wrong. He has a lot of responsibility for the present situation.

LAHNSTEIN: He holds the power.

DEEG: That’s just what I wanted to point out. Why does he hold the power? Any democratic opposition and movements there are in Palestinian society get destroyed by the Palestinian Authority and by Israel.

LAHNSTEIN: I disagree with that.

DEEG: It has been my experience. After Israeli attacks, why are the offices of non-governmental organisations in ruins?

LAHNSTEIN: You’re talking about a momentary situation which is the result of intense military action.

DEEG: It happens all the time. And why are olive orchards being flattened by bulldozers? Why is the very last thing which people have to make a living taken away? Olive trees don’t walk into Israel and blow themselves up!

LAHNSTEIN: Here it’s hard to separate cause and effect. There have been cases where terrorists have used olive orchards as cover in order to approach Jewish settlements.

DEEG: There have been safety zones around the settlements for a long time. I’m talking about olive orchards in completely other areas.

LAHNSTEIN: The conditions have to be created in which such things are not possible.

CHRISMON: What is your vision for peace?

LAHNSTEIN: That a democratic state of Palestine, founded on the rule of law, can thrive, in freedom and dignity, next to the democratic state of Israel, founded on the rule of law. Our contribution probably should be made at the level of individual persons and of non-governmental organisations. Hopefully these will not also sink into despair.

DEEG: I can agree with that. And we must not line up unconditionally behind one side or the other. Furthermore, the way we are debating the Near East conflict in Germany, we Germans ought to deal with our own past first of all.

This discussion was moderated by Axel Reimann and Burkhard Weitz. It appeared in Chrismon Magazine, No. 4/02, in April 2002