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Friday May 4, 2001

In S.F., Knesset member blasts her government, media

ALEXANDRA J. WALL
Bulletin Staff

If language is any indicator of a country's mood, the latest English word to be commonly used in conversation among Israelis speaks volumes: escapism.

So said Naomi Chazan during a visit to San Francisco last week sponsored by the New Israel Fund. A Knesset member in the left-wing Meretz party since 1988, Chazan has long been an advocate for a Palestinian state, as well as a champion for women's issues.

No matter whose side they're on, most Israelis are talking about escapism as a way to achieve a bit of normalcy in their lives these days, Chazan said. And among her contemporaries on the left, she said, it's no different.

Nonetheless, the occasional need for escapism has not turned to indifference. Acknowledging that "the peace camp has suffered a serious blow," Chazan said there are still a number of dedicated activists who are protesting the siege of the West Bank and Gaza, the house demolitions and the other forms of "collective punishment" imposed on the Palestinians by the Israelis.

Such protests are carried out by a small group, which sometimes includes Chazan. If you participate in them often enough, you'll see the same faces all the time, she said. Nevertheless, the protests are effective because they show the Israeli public that they have choices.

"It's important to provide an alternative to official Israel policy," she said. "The impact is not great, but we're keeping choices alive, and people have to understand they have such choices."

The collective punishment of which Chazan speaks, is the sealing off of the territories, not allowing Palestinians to move freely or get to their jobs inside Israel, and not allowing food and other crucial staples, like medical supplies, into the West Bank.

Saying that such a closure is, in effect, "sealing off humanity," she called such methods "absolutely ineffective" because they only "cause civilians to suffer in such a way that they lose hope." What happens then, is it "automatically recruits people to the army of those who want to destroy us."

In another dissenting viewpoint, Chazan expressed the opposite opinion of those, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who say that Israel should not negotiate while under fire. She also disagrees with the commonly heard expression "Ain lanu partnerim," meaning "We have no partners."

"You need it most under fire," she said. "To suggest you won't talk before an end to the violence is saying you have no one to talk to. Your enemy is your partner, by definition."

Chazan had equally harsh words for the Israeli media, which, she said, with the exception of a few journalists at the daily Ha'aretz, failed to ask the tough questions of the Israeli government. Among them: "What kind of policies may be effective in the short term, but will backfire in the long term?"

She answered that question herself, mentioning the state-sanctioned and carried-out assassinations of Palestinian terrorists as one example.

"You're eliminating one specific terrorist, but creating 20 others," she said.

When asked what, if anything, American Jews could do, she refused to offer advice. Israelis, she said, don't know what to do, either. But then she added, "What's going on now is not just an Israeli issue. It's about Judaism. It's about democracy. Forming an opinion and supporting those causes of what Israel should be is an obligation as a human being and as a Jew."

Saying that peace was the "largest feminist issue," and the separation of religion and state was the second, she praised Israel for its progressive legislation regarding women. Those laws now must be implemented, she contended.

Chazan was instrumental in passing a law granting women full equality in the Israel Defense Force. Now those women who want to fight in combat face no obstacles -- barring the derision of their male colleagues, many of whom are not ready to see that happen.

But in the wide-ranging discussion, her praise was limited. As for those Israelis who said they wanted peace, but were not willing to make the painful concessions required to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, she said: "Where does it stop? Controlling 3 million Palestinians from here to eternity is absolutely unacceptable.

"I'm Jewish," she added. "We don't do that."

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