Aref Assaf

March 25, 2008
An open letter to Ms. Alyson Gall, director, American Jewish Committee, NJ

Below is my response to a statement by Alyson Gall, director of the NJ chapter of the American Jewish  Committee. The statement  appeared in journalist Liz Llorrente feature story, " An Unyielding Arab Voice". Alyson Gall's statement is shown in bold (my emphasis). Note the first name is misspelled in the article. It should be Alyson not Alison.

"I am against violence by anyone and for any reason," Assaf says. "But the violence by Palestinians would never have achieved the level it has had it not been for the loss of their land. The occupation by Israel is terrorism at its worst form because it's not attacks by a crazy individual. It's one side keeping the occupied side from having the freedom to live, to worship, to move around."
Assaf says he believes that both sides share some blame and both must admit mistakes before peace can be possible. But he argues that Israel, with more resources and the United States as a strong ally, has the upper hand.
Such talk angers people like Alison Gall, director of the state chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

"Our problem with him and others is everything is looked at through only Palestinian suffering," Gall says. "Palestinians are suffering, but thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired from Gaza into towns that are inside Israel. Israel seems more powerful, but terror today is an equalizer. Assaf is one-sided." Bergen Record, March 23, 2008

Dear MS. Alyson:

I was incensed by your sweeping accusations as reported in the Bergen Record on Sunday, March 23, 2008.

I do not recall that we ever met, spoke, or otherwise engaged in any conversation. In the article, you say, “Assaf is one-sided, I’ll admit, but on the side of justice and fairness.  On the other hand, I find your quoted views to be rather  uneducated and unfair because they demand of  the victim to first recognize the humanity of the victimizer!

I am distressed by your poisonous blend of historical half-truths about our people’s plight. This is not an intellectual debate over the moral equivalency of terrorism by a small group and the arsenal of one the world’s largest armies. For every Israeli killed or maimed, thousands of Palestinians have suffered the same fate. You cannot claim the high moral ground by condemning Palestinian terrorism when you repeatedly pain our ears with the fallacy of “Israel’s right to defend itself”. Do the Palestinians not have a right to defend themselves against Israel’s barbaric and most inhuman occupation?

Israel’s political and spiritual salvation will only come only after it has relinquished the lands it has occupied since 1967. It is only with an independent, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state that Israel can expect to live in peace and as a welcomed neighbor. I know these conditions are unfathomable for many pro-Israeli pundits. I hope you at least will entertain the idea that maybe Israel has committed and can commit unspeakable acts.

I too struggled with our people’s desire to inflict harm upon Israelis. Having needlessly lost a young brother to an American-made bullet that pierced through his neck and exited through his mouth has burdened me for years with the desire to avenge my brother's death.  Do you think my brother did not bleed, did not suffer? Do you think I, my mother, and my family, did not agonize over his tragic death? Can you for once see my suffering through my prism? Just once? When was the last time you condemned Israel for the killing of Palestinians? Or doses Israel never kill innocent Palestinians?

I do recognize the humanity of the Jewish people and their right to share our homeland.  I think we have proven to be rather generous when we ceded 80% of historic Palestine to Israel. But apparently you want those rights to exist at the expense of ours. We were not party to Hitter's Nazism and concentration camps but we singularly paid the heftiest price for the salvation of the Jews  and the crimes of Hitler.

Yet Germany, people and the government, have acknowledge their role  and offered an historic apology to the Jewish people for the crimes of Nazism. When will Israel and Jews worldwide accept their moral and financial responsibility for what befell my people. It may be a most fitting time for you to urge such  a direction as we approach the sixtieth anniversary of your people's 'independence' and my people's catastrophe.

Arguably, while Israel is not alone to blame for the plight of the Palestinian people but it is  the cause of Palestinian dispossession and destitute.  Successive Arab leaders, and regimes couple with fragmented and regionalized Palestinian national movement, immeasurably added to Palestinians' hardship and prolonged suffering.

It is my strong belief that Palestinian- and Jewish- Americans are burdened by the moral responsibility to effect a just and a sustainable US foreign policy in the Middle East. For the last sixty years, US policy has been one-sided, immoral, and more significantly, it has failed miserably to render Israel safe or at peace with its neighbors. Only until recently, did the US began to view the Palestinians as a people deserving a state of their own. A new foregin policy paradigm is needed to converge the political economic and moral reserve of our two constituencies.   If both constituents desire peace and justice, then they must begin to  act as one constituency lobbying Congress not to adopt one-sided resolutions but ones serving our national interest and those in the Middle East.

Now that I have vented my emotions, I see an opportunity for a different approach that will serve both the interests of the US and the warring parties in Palestine/Israel. This hope rests on my conviction that a more even-handed U.S. policy, coupled with a strong popular movement, will bring about the necessary ingredients of peace and justice.

Will you join me in developing  and promoting workable strategies and common narratives and denominators to achieve this noble end?

I want to say a lot more but there may be a better opportunity to do so. That is why I  look forward to your acceptance of an open forum - a dialogue to allow you to see the my humanity, and I yours. We have a lot to disagree about but even more on which to build a hopeful future. Will you accept my challenge?

Respectfully,

Dr. Aref Assaf