A mayor in Manhattan
Hirschfield, Robert
TANGLED HOPES IN THE HOLT LAND-D3 A mayor in Manhattan ROBERT HIRSCHFELD THE exiled mayor of Halhoul, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, sat unaccustomedly among dozens of friendly Jews on...
...The violence, with which he has lived since he was born, has wearied him as it has his counterparts on the Israeli side...
...A major problem on both sides seems to be that charges, such as expansionism on the one hand and terrorism on the other, have assumed demonological proportions that thwart rational dialogue between Jews and Palestinians...
...With that anecdote, an emotional link between the mayor and his Jewish listeners was forged...
...It would never be accepted...
...Seeing milhelm at that gathering, one was struck by the indecent occupational similarity between Palestinians and Jews...
...Commonweal: 724...
...It was ruling the West Bank with indiscriminate terror that was driving the people into open revolt...
...It was driving more and more Arabs from their homes to build its settlements...
...The link was quickly weakened when the mayor asked rhetorically: "Who owns this land...
...Which Milhelm was the real Milhelm...
...He proceeded to relate an anecdote illustrating the psychic inhumanity of one of the most controversial aspect of Israeli rule on the West Bank...
...Milhelm invited the audience to put themselves in the shoes of a Palestinian refugee, homeless since 1948, languishing for thirty years in a refugee camp, the world indifferent to his plight...
...The cause of peace would have been well served had Milhelm deplored the Damascus declaration...
...One day, Peres met with him and said, 'Don't have anything to do with the PLO...
...We are not guests here...
...Deal with me.' That made Peres very happy, and he said, 'I will give you whatever you want.' The mayor said, 'Will you give me a Palestinian state?' Peres said 'No...
...Both demand political support as compensation for historic afflictions...
...What is important is not whether one is an Arab or a Jew, but whether one is a human being...
...The Milhelm who appeared before the Palestine Solidarity Committee was Milhelm the ideologist opposed to Israel as a colonialist entity that took from his people their homes and their homeland because of an ancient territorial claim that was incomprehensible and unjust...
...Emunim, may still advocate such borders...
...Later, someone asked him to comment on Palestinian extremism, namely the Damascus declaration of the PLO that vowed to "liquidate the Zionist entity politically, economically, militarily, culturally, and ideologically...
...The mayor reserved the brunt of his anger for the Begin government...
...You won't send a bunch of roses,'' he told mem,' 'to those who are living in your house...
...Contradictory statements, like those made by the mayor, only serve to increase their doubts...
...Both are salesmen of suffering...
...Unperturbed, Milhelm explained that the declaration was meant as a warning to the Begin government...
...I have a friend who was mayor of another town...
...Milhelm's accusation could hardly have been more ill-founded or inflammatory...
...They are terrorists.' The mayor said, 'I am not of the ,PLO...
...I am a town mayor...
...TANGLED HOPES IN THE HOLT LAND-D3 A mayor in Manhattan ROBERT HIRSCHFELD THE exiled mayor of Halhoul, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, sat unaccustomedly among dozens of friendly Jews on Manhattan's Upper West Side...
...The Milhelm who appeared before the Jewish audience was Milhelm the pragmatist ready to recognize Israel because Israel exists, and because a twostate compromise solution that would bring peace was better than no solution at all that would bring war, followed by more war, followed by mutual extinction...
...A handful of orthodox Jews, like those of Gush ROBERT HBtSCHHELD is a free-lance writer and photographer specializing in the Middle East...
...For Milhelm, there can be no peace unless a Palestinian state is created...
...This time he answered evasively, saying only that Jews would be free "to live side by side with Arabs in a Palestinian state...
...They had come contritely, hopefully, inquisitively and somewhat apprehensively to the meeting with Mohammed Milhelm...
...Zionists, both left and right, doubt Palestinian willingness to recognize Israel...
...I am hungry for stability,'' he declared...
...They need each other more than they know...
...You are guests here...
...At his next meeting, sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the same woman rose again and proceeded to ask him the same question...
...Any autonomy plan that would keep Israeli troops on the West Bank and deny the Palestinians their complete independence would only lead to more bloodshed...
...To rule others is to be inhuman...
...He answered: "The Israelis have in mind borders from the Nile to the Euphrates...
...Arabs and Jews," he said, "should meet and talk anywhere in the world...
...Indeed it does, though perhaps not in the way Milhelm intended...
...You are wrong...
...Such a government," he maintained, "needs such a stand...
...Both, perhaps...
...How would they feel...
...Both, being marginal and expendable, are equally vulnerable to international power plays and equally susceptible to betrayal...
...However waveringly, it bends toward the spring...
...Most Israelis, including most religious Israelis, do not...
...This tension between hope and apprehension made the audience most attentive...
...In other words, the borders the Jews were promised by God in the Bible...
...Confronting them, Mayor Milhelm issued a reprimand and reminded them...
...Milhelm's story could have been the story of almost any shtetl leader whose power was a sad paper crown to be kicked around by cowardly gentile hooligans...
...You are the guests...
...It also has the same alienating effect on Israeli public opinion that Begin's statements have in the Palestinian camp...
...Milhelm told another anecdote...
...I am hungry for peace...
...I don't want anyone to call for the destruction of Israel and bring down destruction on my head...
...But is peace possible...
...Some Arab youths began to throw stones at them, to which the settlers responded by opening fire...
...Milhelm's pragmatism is a bough that must be kept from burning...
...The Damascus declaration provides the Begin government with the self-justification it needs to pursue its hardline policies in the territories...
...The matter, unfortunately, did not end there...
...It was determined never to relinquish the occupied territories from Israeli control...
...Most were left-wing Zionists...
...Therein lay their apprehension...
...Therein lay their hope...
...He began, perhaps ^urteously, with encouragement...
...To his credit, the mayor has spoken out against the recent 19 December 1980: 723 killings of the six Jews in Hebron as well as the killings of Arabs by Israelis...
...During his tour of America with Fahd Kawasme, the exiled mayor of Hebron, Milhelm had repeatedly declared himself an advocate of Israeli-Palestinian peace...
...The woman came away bewildered and distressed...
...Without hesitation, Milhelm replied, "I will accept a state of Israel side by side with a Palestinian state...
...If it did not compromise, the PLO would not compromise...
...One day, a party of Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) settlers came into Halhoul...
...Milhelm, a Palestinian flag decal sticking out of his lapel, spoke briefly and informally, alternating between harshness and sad ,s, chastisement and encouragement...
...A woman from the audience rose and asked Mayor Milhelm to state categorically whether or not he would be willing to recognize the State of Israel once a state was granted the Palestinians...
...But the mayor also supports the PLO, which recently adopted a no-compromise position in its struggle to "liquidate" Israel...
...They responded...
Vol. 107 • December 1980 • No. 23
