BROKERING THE PEACE
Local contingent travel to West Bank on mission
From left, Bob Tendler, Robert Zwang and Dr. Dan Goodman, respectively the board president, executive director and past president/overseas initiatives chairman of the Federation Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut, stand in front of trucks loaded with Israeli-made blankets bound for Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin a few weeks ago.
As Palestinian, Israeli and international dignitaries celebrat ed the re-opening of a West Bank border crossing this month, an envoy from Southbury sat among them.
Unlike international movers and shakers present for the highly heralded reconnection between Israel and Jenin — a city once labeled the suicide bomber capital of the West Bank — the Connecticut contingent did not boast lofty titles like prime minister or secretary.
They were an emergency room doctor and the executive director of a local Jewish foun dation, there as part of an ongoing mission to cultivate Mideast peace through plans at once modest and ambitious.
Two weeks earlier, Robert Zwang, executive director of the Federation-Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut; Bob Tendler, a Southbury pharmacist and president of the federation; Dr. Peter Jacoby, who oversees a Waterbury emergency room; and Dr. Daniel Goodman, a local physician and past federation president, visited the region. They distributed 2,000 Israeli- made blankets to impoverished Palestinians in Jenin.
With a convoy of trucks brim ming with the warm and fuzzy gestures, they stopped at homes for the blind, deaf and physically handicapped. It was the latest overture by Western Connecticut residents to improve circumstances for Palestinians — as well as Israelis — amid the longtime tumult.
BIGGER THAN BLANKETS
But the mission is bigger than blankets. It’s about bro kering a long-term relationship based on mutual respect and trust that could lead to lasting peace.
Zwang admits it seems counterintuitive to help people long dubbed “the enemy.” But demographic trends and Jewish values of charity, social justice and repairing the world dictate that a new approach built on trust is not just a feel-good con cept but a necessity, he said.
In August the Federation brought to Connecticut an unlikely trio of Jewish, Arab-Is raeli and Palestinian officials.
The threesome work side in northern Israel, in a region that extends from a rural Israeli-controlled area to the abutting and more densely populated Jenin. In the U.S., the Federation paraded the warm relationship between Gilboa’s Jewish may or, Daniel Atar, and his Arab deputy, Eid Salem, and the Palestinian governor of Jenin, Qadoura Moussa. They arranged meetings with politicians, local Jews and heads of Jewish organizations. The visit ing trio snapped photos at the Statue of Liberty, and courted donors.
Bonds like these men’s, based in mutual respect, are what will win peace, believe a group that includes Zwang, his Federation supporters and even leadership at the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
Israeli news crews interview Robert Zwang, executive director of the Federation-Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut.
FROM THE GROUND UP
At a news conference last month, the leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations called the cooperative spirit in Jenin and Gilboa “an unprecedented part nership that can lead the way for future cooperation between other ... communities.”
The efforts undertaken by the Israeli officials and championed by their Connecticut supporters work in concert with an ongoing initiative by the Quartet, four international entities working to secure peace. The Quartet employs approaches new and old — from brokering a two-state solution to establishing an economic enterprise zone to lift the region, and desperate Palestinians, out of poverty. Instead of the trickle down truce negotiated by world leaders, the one involving players from Southbury and the Gilboa-Jenin trio aims to foster peace from the bottom up.
Relationships figure prominently in this novel plan, one that, if successful, interested parties hope to emulate else where. With their trips to Israel and the local visit from the Is raeli and Arab officials, the Southbury contingent aimed to expand the web of goodwill.
In early November, the Connecticut men delivered a proposal with potential for big dividends to the Jenin-Gilboa local leaders. Experts affiliated with Yale University agreed to compile an economic plan — one that could be used to attract investors — if the men could convince their respective higher powers in Israel and Fatah, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ political faction, to sign on. A similar plan in Bangladesh improved life for many there, said Zwang. “We put this stuff on the table in little old Southbury,” said Zwang, who in 1999 brought 100 Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian children to Kent for a Seeds of Peace summer camp. “There’s a strong need for the Palestinian people to have a homeland, just like the Jews and Israel. Nothin’ wrong with that.”
Complications arise when the same, distrustful suspects rehash the same old battles, he said. Using a forward-looking economic plan bypasses old sticking points while serving as a springboard for future talks as relations improve, Zwang added.
“Instead of looking back, they’ll look forward,” said Zwang, noting issues like settlements and land rights become easier to negotiate after trust and collaboration flourish.
ISRAEL’S FUTURE AT STAKE
Men like Tendler and Zwang want the outside world to invest — not only financially, but in spirit and otherwise. As millions are funneled to extremist efforts, Zwang implored the worldwide Jewry to financially support coexistence plans like the economic investment zone, just as they did for the formation of Israel.
“Here we are on that same road, and we have another opportunity to secure (Israel’s) future, to contribute in a very Jewish way to its neighbors and future,” said Zwang.
Not only is it a benevolent humanitarian gesture, it’s smart for staunch supporters of Israel, said Tendler.
Numbers — namely time and demographics — are not on Israel’s side. A robust Palestinian birth rate and festering social problems pose hazards to the tenuous equilibrium.
“Israel’s future is at stake,” said Zwang.
Barbed wire still surround some places where Palestinian refugees resettled some six decades ago, one of many relics indicative of the tumultuous past the Jewish Federation hopes officials in the Afula-Gilboa region of northern Israel can overcome.
The Federation’s board president, Tendler, said he never appreciated conditions under which many Palestinians live until he saw barbed wire encircling a refugee camp still occupied by thousands. The occupants were resettled or displaced by the 1940s Arab-Israeli conflict. The United Nations paid municipalities to host these refugees.
“The hosts, they never did anything with (the Palestinian refugees), and now, 64 years later, they’re there,” shrugged Tendler, describing a birth rate that approaches seven babies per woman in the place he visited and rampant unemployment. “I can’t imagine being 75 or 80 years old and living there without having (had) the opportunity to work.” Delivering the blankets drove home the human toll of protracted discord.
“When you see these little peanuts, or grown-ups,” said Tendler, placing his hand over his heart. “If you would see these kids clutching these blankets, it really made you think you’re doing something good.”
To Jacoby, director of Saint Mary’s Hospital’s emergency room, the peace-making mission holds promise.
Palestinian children clutch blankets distributed to them and others in the West Bank region of Jenin by members of the Southbury-based Federation-Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut and others earlier this month.
“It’s a seed that you plant, and if the seed germinates, just think of it as, wow, you helped make this happen,” said Jacoby, who reentered East Jerusalem through a Ramallah checkpoint.
Israeli forces long considered such roadblocks necessary to halt suicide bombers, while critics say they hindered Palestinians’ mobility and access to schools and medical care.