David McReynolds writes

"A Thousand Coffins at the United Nations

Mar 19, 2002

Let's see if I can pull the words out at this hour, and
write this in one flow.

Today, shortly after 1 p.m., I got to Dag Hamaskold
Plaza near the United Nations, to look at the "Coffin
Display" arranged by Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved
Families for Peace. (Two groups cooperated in this
project, the Parents' Circle of 200 families in Israel
and National Movement for Change in the Palestinian
Authority).

There, in the space where on other occasions thousands
have rallied for various causes, were over a thousand
coffins. 800 coffins draped with Palestinian flags,
250 with Israeli flags. I am a hardened radical but as
soon as I saw the neat rows of coffins my eyes filled
with tears. I walked down the rows, looked at the
banners posted on all four sides of the square -
"Better Have Pains of Peace Than Agonies of War". I met
some friends from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. I
spoke briefly to a young Israeli woman who had lost her
son to a suicide bomber. I thanked her for the action.
She apologized for making me cry. I spoke briefly to
the Palestinian mother, a relative of hers (perhaps her
husband) holding up a photo of their child lost to
Israeli fire. And then I walked away from the small
crowd, found a concrete bench and broke down.

I thought about why I was weeping, what had "broken
through" my political shell. It was both the simplicity
of the action, but also because it had "called me back"
from my anger against Israel, and that I must explain,
both for those of you who are younger and so easily
throw around terms like "Zionism", and those of you who
are older and may have chosen one side of the other too
firmly.

At UCLA I was the co-chair of a Christians and Jews for
Israel Committee (l948, probably). In those days all of
us in the socialist movement danced the hora, sang
Zionist songs, had friends who were going to or had
been in a Kibbutz. Israel, essentially a democratic
socialist experiment to repair the horror of Hitlerism,
was alone in a reactionary Arab Middle East dominated
by oil, by feudal regimes, by Arabs who had sided with
Hitler.

Time passed and reality set in. Israel was weak, one
country alone. The American Jewish community was large
and strong. It helped shaped US policy toward Israel
(ask anyone in Washington DC about AIPAC). The Anti-
Defamation League changed its old policies and began to
treat anyone who sympathized with the Palestinians as
anti-Semitic. I watched my old friend Irwin Suall, who
worked for them, change and harden and drift away from
us.

Israel opposed the liberation of Algeria - it meant one
more Arab state that would be hostile. But it also
meant siding with French Colonialism. (Might Algerian
policy have been different if Israel sided with the
FLN? But the problem was the French were supplying
Israel with weapons - a short range imperative). When
Nasser, part of the proud new Arab nationalism that was
breaking with the old regimes, took over the Suez
Canal, Great Britain and France and Israel joined in
invading Egypt. It was October, 1956. In Hungary
workers had risen against the Communist Party. Soviet
tanks were moving through the streets. In a way I could
forgive Israel - she felt it a matter of life and death
- but France and Great Britain chose the exact moment
when the attention of the world should have been on
Hungary to deflect it with this invasion. (The invasion
failed, and like Israel's backing of France in Algeria,
it helped leave a permanent hostility to Israel among
moderate and secular Arabs).

More years passed, and Israel made its alliance with
South Africa under its old regime, and welcomed the
leader of that country - a man who had been sympathetic
to Hitler - to Israel.

The refugees sweltered, used as political pawns by the
Arab states (if you think the Palestinian refugees are
fans of the Arab states you haven't had private talks
with them), and ignored - simply ignored - by Israel,
as if many of them had not been driven out of their
homes by terror. (Does one still have to document
this?). I remember Norman Thomas speaking of the
problem of the refugees and some in the New York
Zionist movement saying he had always been anti-
Semitic.

Time passed and the settlements began in the Occupied
Territory. A very deliberate and careful policy - one
for which Sharon bears special responsibility, but
Labor also - to make any independent Palestinian State
impossible.

Time passed and Israel said (I have the clippings from
the Times somewhere in my dusty collection) "let us
sell the arms to the Central American dictators - it
looks bad if you do it, and we can use the money".

Time passed and often on key votes in the United
Nations the only dissent would be the US and Israel.
Never did they disagree.

Israel, under Sharon, invaded Lebanon, was responsible
for mass killings by the Christian milita at the
Palestinian refugee camps.

It had become clear to us that Israel was now an
apartheid state. In some ways worse than South Africa
had been. The oppression of the Palestinians was
largely ignored by Israelis. The Israelis were doing
well. And, lets, face it, lets not play games, there is
a deep thread of racism in Israeli society - not only
against the Palestinians but also against the North
African Jews - who formed the backbone of Likkud.

And how was this different from my own country? A
nation much of which was built by slaves. How many
Americans cared that the Vietnamese lost over two
million people? How many Americans have paused to
wonder if the Vietnamese might not also grieve for
their Missing in Action? How can we ignore that we, as
a people, elected Richard Nixon twice. And Reagan
twice. And now Bush. (Except, of course, he wasn't
elected - he was anointed by the Supreme Court). How
many Americans care about the children dying in Iraq?
It only takes a government spokesperson to say it is
really Saddam's fault and our minds are at rest. A half
million die and we are not concerned. Iraq is an evil
country - probably its children and elderly and weak
are evil as well.

I have no faith in the majority of Israelis (nor of
Americans) to make right choices when the only facts
they have are filtered through the mass media.

All of this anger, all of this bitterness, dissolved in
tears at what parents had done in front of my eyes.
Parents - Jews and Arabs, Palestinian and Israeli -
sharing only a common terrible grief of children, or
sisters, brothers, parents, gone. Gone by Israeli jet
attacks. Gone by a suicide bomber. But gone. And I look
out at a display of life size (if one can say of an
coffin that it is "life size") coffins, 1,050 of them.
There in the plaza near the United Nations. On a day
not yet quite spring.

How dare I give up hope of change within the human
heart when here in front of me were these long and
terrible rows of flag draped coffins to remind us all
of what stubborn political logic had bought. There is
no military way out for Israel. It must negotiate. And
we must want those negotiations to succeed.

Oh yes, I think every Jewish settlement in the Occupied
Territories should be yanked out by the roots. Oh yes,
I think every inch of the Occupied Terroritories must
be returned to the Palestinians, and a sovereign
Palestinian State emerge there (even though I don't
believe in states, I see no other choice now).

This dreadful collection of death had been made visible
here by the work of both Palestinian and Jewish
contacts in this country. Shortly before I arrived an
orthodox Rabbi had gone over to the Palestinian woman
and asked if she wanted to talk to her relatives in
Palestine, pulled out his cell phone and dialed - a
human contact between an Orthodox Rabbi and a
Palestinian grieving over her loss.

Many Palestinians are weary of Arafat but Sharon cannot
choose the leader of the Palestinians, nor can I choose
the leader of Israel, weary as I know many Israelis are
with that man, and wicked as I believe his policies to
be.

What we can do is speak with respect of the saving
remnant on both sides who continue to work together, to
suffer together, to reach out to one another. How dare
I not do the same? How dare any of us on the Left, in
the Peace movement, not support these elements of life
which exist there? Our politics can be clear, but let
our language be touched by the compassion of what both
sides are living through.

The coffins spoke to me. If I broke down after seeing
them, it was because sometimes my anger is so great I
forget that the seeds of life are what radicals must
nurture - in this case seeds of life glimpsed in a sea
of flag draped coffins.

Fraternally,

Peace,

David McReynolds
(on the staff of War Resisters League, Socialist Party
candidate for President, 2000)"