Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2007, pages 53-55

Southern California Chronicle

Women in Black Hold Silent Vigils Against Israel Philharmonic Performances

By Pat and Samir Twair

WOMEN IN Black held silent vigils Jan. 30 in New York and Feb. 5 and 6 in Los Angeles to protest the performances in those cities of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

To questions of why they were protesting a cultural institution, Carol Smith of WIB/Los Angeles explained that “The Israel Philharmonic’s conductor, Zubin Mehta, calls it ”˜Israel’s flagship.’ On its Web site, the orchestra talks about performing for Israel’s soldiers in the field and in celebrating Israel’s military victories. So the orchestra, which is supported by the Israeli government, sees itself as an instrument of its government’s policies. It’s these policies that impose an apartheid system on the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.”

Initially, the WIB/LA group sent a letter to the Israel Philharmonic asking it to take a public stand on the military occupation of the Palestinian people. It was accompanied by a petition signed by more than 1,000 people, including Silvia Tennebaum, step-daughter of the founding conductor, William Steinberg, of the orchestra known in 1936 as the Palestine Symphony.

When the Israel Philharmonic failed to respond, WIB/LA hand-delivered a letter to Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and to its music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, requesting that they either cancel the appearances or at least make an announcement before each concert opposing the occupation of Palestine “as a first step toward a viable peace.”

Borda replied by letter that the Los Angeles Philharmonic will “never support the silencing of artists from any culture as a means of political action.”

As the Los Angeles performances neared, WIB/LA staged silent vigils Jan. 14 and 28 before Sunday performances of the L.A. Philharmonic, holding signs stating: “End Israel Apartheid in Palestine” and “Boycott Israel Philharmonic.”

The L.A. Philharmonic responded by announcing Disney Hall’s 2,000-capacity parking garage would be closed the nights of Feb. 5 and 6 for security reasons. When Smith and Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild met with the Los Angeles Police Department to ensure vigilers would have protection, they were informed that the City Council had passed an ordinance closing traffic and sidewalks in front of Disney Hall on the nights of Feb. 5 and 6.

After Lafferty and Smith threatened to sue on constitutional grounds that the sidewalk must be open to the public, Disney Hall backed down, and the activists were permitted to stand on a section of sidewalk facing the main entrance.

Bicycle racks were placed on the sidewalk to separate the silent vigilers from concert-goers. As it turned out, however, as Mary Hughes Thomas explained, “Those racks were a godsend. We could lean our protest signs on them.

“The beauty of the vigils,” Thomas noted, “is we reached people who know nothing about the Israeli occupation. Many Asians read our signs and took our flyers. We brought our message to many new people who used to think Israel is the victim.”

For more details, visit <https://www.wib-la.org>.

Behind Israel’s Latest Assault on al-Aqsa Mosque

Addressing the Arab American Press Guild on Feb. 8, Ramallah economist and author Dr. Adel Samara shed some light on the latest Israeli intrusion into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

According to Dr. Samara, Israel has been excavating the area around and beneath al-Aqsa Mosque for two years, and intends to create a “city under the city of Old Jerusalem” for tourists. The silence on the part of the Muslim world since the “repair” work on the Mughrabi Gate began Feb. 6 is worrisome to him, he said.

Israelis claim they are replacing a pedestrian ramp weakened by a snowstorm and an earthquake which collapsed in 2004. Muslims contend they were not notified of the repairs, which could undermine the foundation of al-Aqsa. They also fear the new passage would improve Israeli access into the al-Aqsa compound.

Regarding the West’s insistence that Hamas recognize Israel, Dr. Samara pointed out Oslo was all about the PLO recognizing Israel—and look what happened.

“The Oslo Accords were strictly between Israel and Yasser Arafat, not the Palestinian people,” he said. “Arafat got a piece of land, Jericho, and that’s it.”

Hedy Epstein Tells the Truth

Hedy Epstein has seen a lot in her 82 years, as was evident in her Jan. 13 talk at the Beverly Hills Library sponsored by Women In Black/Los Angeles. She escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1939 as a 14-year-old aboard Kindertransport, which saved the lives of 10,000 Jewish Austrian and German children by shipping them to England. When she returned to Germany in 1945 as a researcher for the Nuremburg Trials, she discovered the atrocities Nazis had committed against Jews. Now she is seeking justice for the Palestinians.

“I’m not anti-Israel,” she emphasized, “but I am opposed to policies and practices of the Israeli government as it relates to the Palestinians.”

Even as conditions in Germany worsened after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Epstein explained, her parents didn’t consider fleeing to Palestine. “They never bought into the Zionist philosophy,” she noted. “They said nothing good would come of colonizing Palestine.”

Decades later, Epstein learned her parents had been deported in 1941 to a “transfer” camp in Vichy France and sent to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942.

Epstein emigrated to the U.S. in 1948 and, five years later, married Arnold Epstein. In 1981, she made her first trip to Israel, for a commemoration honoring Holocaust survivors. She recalled being taken aback by Israelis’ disdain for Palestinians and wondering how a people who had suffered so horribly four decades earlier could react so cruelly toward another minority group.

In December 2003, Hedy traveled to Israel and the occupied territories as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). “We were shocked by the sight of the 36-feet-tall apartheid wall snaking its way through Palestinian land,” she said.

It was on her departure from Israel the following month that Hedy underwent the most humiliating experience of her life—perpetrated by a fellow Jew.

At passport control, she recounted, “No sooner did I submit my name than two men approached and ordered me to follow them.”

The men led her to a stall with an opening barely covered by a curtain, where a female officer told the 79-year-old woman to undress. “If you don’t disrobe,” the officer threatened, “you will be held in detention until you get an attorney.”

Panicking, Epstein realized her cell phone had been confiscated, so that she had no way to call her friends or an attorney. She had no alternative but to comply.

“Bend over,” the guard ordered. “I’m going to examine you internally.”

During the journey home, Hedy picked up El-Al in-flight magazines and wrote on each page: “I am a Holocaust survivor and I will never return to Israel.”

But she did—in the summer of 2004 with a group called Women of a Certain Age. This time, however, she wrote ahead to her congressman, W. Lacey Clay (D-MO), who then requested of Daniel Ayalon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., that his constituent be treated courteously upon her arrival and departure from Israel.

Epstein was not strip searched on that trip, or on the ones she made as an ISM volunteer in 2005 and 2006.

Last summer, when she joined protesters in Bil’in for their nonviolent Friday demonstrations against the apartheid wall, Israeli troops used not only live ammunition but a new “sound” grenade which diminished Epstein’s hearing.

Epstein also visited the Hamas mayor of Beit Ummar, Farhan Algam. “The mayor told us he is concerned about his four children,” she said. “He doesn’t want them to hate all Jews because of the brutal behavior of the Israeli soldiers.”

After returning to her St. Louis home, Hedy was upset to read that on Aug. 24, six Israeli military vehicles encircled Mayor Algam’s home. He was thrown to the ground and sent to a settlement prison.

Once more she wrote Congressman Clay, expressing her concern for the kindly Palestinian mayor. Again, Clay wrote Ambassador Alayon asking that the incarcerated mayor be treated civilly.

“I don’t know if it was coincidental,” Epstein commented, “but the mayor was released soon after.”

In January 2003, the French government paid Epstein $30,000 in reparations for sending her parents to their deaths in Auschwitz. Saying she regarded it as “blood” money, she put it into the Hugo and Ella Wachenheimer Education Foundation for Palestinian and Israeli Children. The beneficiaries are Seeds for Peace; Neve Shalom, an Arab-Jewish school; Peace Research Institute of the Middle East; al-Arab Mobile Clinic in Gaza; and the Israeli Coalition Against Home Demolitions.

Kucinich a Hit in Whittier

”The next two months are critical,” stated Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), addressing more than 200 enthusiastic supporters Jan. 28 in St. Matthias Episcopal Church of Whittier.

“The president says there is no way to get out of Iraq, but I have a 10-point plan to end the war,” he said. “If the world saw that we were seriously taking a new direction to set the stage for regional talks, we could have a stable security force in Iraq within three months.”

In addition to stressing the critical need for the administration to talk to Iran and Syria instead of rattling sabers and moving the U.S. fleet to the Persian Gulf, Kucinich called for an honest reconstruction of Iraq that would bring U.S. contractors home and give Iraqis the chance to rebuild their nation.

“There must be a reconciliation between Americans and Iraqis,” the presidential candidate averred. “We must show profound sorrow for what we’ve done. There are many unsavory leaders in the world, but we had no right to remove Saddam Hussain.”

Addressing fears of a war on Iran, Kucinich said, ”We must let Bush know that war on Iran is unacceptable. If we strike Tehran, our troops in Iraq are in danger of being annihilated.”

The Democratic Party must transform itself and stand for peace, Kucinich stated, or it won’t survive. “War is profit for a few,” he concluded. “Peace is prosperity for all.”

L.A. Supports Watada

Two days before Lt. Ehren Watada’s Feb. 5 court martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq, more than 500 of his supporters gathered in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo and marched to Higashi Honganji Temple for a rousing rally for the conscientious objector.

Carolyn Ho, Lieutenant Watada’s mother, received a standing ovation as she said: “My son speaks out for soldiers who are afraid to speak out because they would lose the means of supporting their families.”

Her son called her on New Year’s Day of 2006, the petite Chinese American said, to tell her he’d reached the decision not to deploy to Iraq when the order came.

“I asked why he was doing this, to be blacklisted the rest of his life, [and] that he had a promising military career,” Ho recalled.

The concerned mother said she honored her son’s decision after he told her that when he was sitting in a cell, his conscience would be free of engaging in war crimes or killing women and children.

On the third day of Watada’s court martial at Fort Lewis, WA, the judge, Lt. Col. John Head, declared a mistrial because military lawyers had suppressed Watada’s reasons for refusing to deploy.

According to Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyer’s Guild, Watada’s orders to deploy were illegal and he had a duty to disobey them. Cohn said Watada could possibly be dishonorably discharged, but that the judge’s ruling of a mistrial precludes him being retried on the same charges. Watada remains on duty at a desk job in Fort Lewis.

Judge Dismisses L.A. 8 Case

After a 20-year court battle, a federal immigration judge ruled Jan. 30 in Los Angeles that the government violated the constitutional rights of Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh by its “gross failure” to comply with his instructions to produce “potentially exculpatory and other relevant information.”

Hamide and Shehadeh were defendants in the “L.A. 8” case, in which the government tried to deport seven Palestinians and the Kenyan wife of one because they were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. All eight denied any affiliation with the PFLP.

Judge Bruce E. Einhorn called the government’s behavior “an embarrassment to the rule of law” which caused “a festering wound on” the defendants, who’ve been in legal and personal limbo for 20 years.

The government had until March 1 to appeal.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.