Israeli peace activist Miko Peled electrified a gathering of Christians, Jews, Muslims and others in Ottawa recently by predicting peace in the Middle East on the basis of a democratic state in Israel-Palestine with equal rights for all citizens - hopefully within his lifetime.
Other conscientious Israelis and American Jews have made the same point in Ottawa, such as journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, historian Allan Pappe and scholar Norman Finkenstein. But Peled was more emphatic and he sees a just peace in a shorter time.
Peled made the following main assertions: 1) Israel has destroyed the possibility of a two-state solution and it has no intention of promoting it despite its insistence that it is the Palestinians who do not want peace.
2) Israel promotes double standards and self-serving myths to justify its unjust and illegal policies and some Western governments repeat those lies for their own reasons.
3) Israel's occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza is immoral, illegal and oppressive.
4) The United Nations, under Western pressure, imposed a partition of Palestine that was unjust and unworkable.
5) Israel has practiced ethnic cleansing from the day that the UN resolution creating Israel was passed.
6) Israel is a democracy for Jews but an apartheid state for its Arab citizens.
7) Israel launched the 1967 war not in self-defense but to establish total supremacy in the Middle East.
Peled said his claims are based on historical facts.
Rev. John Bridges of St. Paul's Anglican Church spoke about the human cost of the conflict - 18,000 Palestinians and Israelis killed (mostly Palestinians), millions displaced and living in misery generation after generation. He appealed to North Americans to shed their fear of criticizing Israeli policies and push for justice and peace.
Senator Pierre du Bane contrasted Israeli brutality with Canada's kindness. He is the longest serving parliamentarian in Canada having served for 45 years. He was born in 1938 in Haifa where he said Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in peace and friendship. Then came partition in 1948 and bombs fell and bullets flew. His widowed mother huddled her six children in a taxi and fled to Lebanon. Today the six are scattered in four continents - Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. But for Canada, Sen. Du Bane said, he might be rotting in a refugee camp. He landed in Halifax and started to build a new life. He has served as a Member of Parliament, a federal cabinet minister and a Senator. He retires this year.
What made Peled's statements particularly forceful was that he presented a comprehensive picture of the past, present and future - and that his credentials are impeccable.
He is the grandson of Dr. Avraham Katznelson, a Zionist leader in the 1920s, who was one of those who signed Israel's declaration of independence and was Israel's first ambassador to Scandinavia.
Peled's father, Gen. Matti Peled, was 16 when he joined the Palmach, which fought for Israel's independence. He commanded an infantry company in the 1948 war, became a general and was among Israel's top military leaders in the 1967 war.
Immediately after Israel's victory in 1967, Gen. Peled urged Israeli military and political leaders to seek a just settlement with Palestinians and end the conflict. They refused and proceeded with a creeping annexation of the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing of the land. Gen. Peled was elected to the Knesset, established contact with Yasser Arafat and others and kept prodding for a just peace till his death in 1995.
Miko Peled's mother, to whom he has dedicated his book The General's Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, (Just World Books), is Zika Katznelson-Peled. When Israelis ousted Palestinians from their homes starting in 1948 they offered a spacious house in Jerusalem to the Peled family. Though the family lived in a small apartment, Zika Katznelson-Peled refused to accept the stolen house of an innocent family that had been displaced.
The Peled family displayed the same moral strength when tragedy stuck in 1997: Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Jerusalem, killing themselves and some civilians, including Miko Peled's 13-year-old niece Smadar. Israel's dignitaries gathered at the apartment of Peled' sister Nurit to offer condolences. The media asked for her thoughts at her young daughter's tragic death. Her response stunned everyone. She prayed that no other family would face such a tragedy. She stated that she held the Israeli government responsible for the death of her daughter because its brutal occupation had driven Palestinians, including two suicide bombers, to despair.
Nurit and her husband Rami became active in the search for a just peace.
Peled stated that the problem began when the UN partitioned Palestine, giving the bigger part to a minority of 500,000, mostly immigrants, and a smaller area to the 1.5 million original inhabitants.
Peled stated that the close to 40,000 fully trained and armed Zionist militia immediately attacked Palestinians, who had no such force, and began killing and ousting them from their homes. He stated that Arab states tried to intervene eight months later, but lost.
Zionism, he said, uses double standards. Jews anywhere in the world have the right to settle in Israel, but the Palestinians who have lived there for centuries cannot return to their own homes and country.
Peled lauded Israel as a democracy for Jews. But he said that some 30 laws discriminate against Arab citizens. Though they can vote and are elected to the Knesset they are denied permits and state services and discriminated against severely to force them to leave.
They suffer degrading poverty.Peled studied Israeli military archives and the minutes of meetings of Israeli cabinets and generals. These stated that the Israelis knew that in 1967 the Egyptian army was in no position to fight. Israeli generals decided that when President Gamal Nasser sent the Egyptian army to the Sinai, it gave them the perfect opportunity to destroy the Egyptian army. The Israelis then accelerated their ethnic cleansing. Although Arafat agreed to the Palestinian state being formed on just 20 percent of the land and to renounce the Palestinians' right to return, the Israelis wanted the whole country and hoped that the brutality of their occupation would force the Palestinians to leave.
Peled stated that six and a half million Israelis are ruling over six million Palestinians in Israel and occupied territories, but this cannot go on forever. He said that support for the Palestinians' just rights and for boycott of Israeli products is rising all over the world, especially on US campuses, and among church groups and younger Jews, who find Israel's brutal policies in flagrant violation of Jewish values. As these protests increase, the US will be forced to back away from kowtowing to Israeli extremists.
Peled now lives in the US and promotes dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians and pushes for justice and peace. He also raises funds to send wheelchairs to those maimed in Israel and the occupied territories.Peled visits Israel regularly and goes unarmed and unescorted to the occupied territories and Gaza and feels no danger. He finds the Palestinians yearning for peace and justice. Peled's speech in Ottawa touched people because of his family's high moral standards.
He was speaking about the Middle East but what he said applies universally - that if the world is to live in harmony and justice, it cannot be done through lies, oppression, killings, ethnic cleansing and the use of lethal weaponry to subjugate people and steal their resources.
It will come about when people apply the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other great faiths that emphasize integrity, justice, peace, mutual respect, compassion and the brotherhood of man.
Peled's words touched hearts because he, his sister, brother-in-law, mother and late father stood and stand for truth, justice and the equality of human beings. This cause is winning support in the US and that is why Peled expects that justice and equality will one day prevail over tyranny and evil in his own land and that everyone there will be able to live in peace, equality, dignity, mutual respect and love. — Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge. He has received the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario and the Queen's Diamond and Golden Jubilee Medals
