Focus 580; A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Sacred Place

In this first hour of the show we'll be talking with Joshua Hammer He works for Newsweek magazine and for several years now has been writing about the conflict in the Middle East. He first went to work at Newsweek as a staff writer in one thousand eighty eight in 92. He moved to Nairobi and he spent the next four years as Newsweek's Africa bureau chief. After that he worked heading up the bureaus in South America Los Angeles and Berlin before he moved to Jerusalem in January of 2000 and one he's also contributed to other publications including Esquire New Republic Rolling Stone and Mother Jones he's the author of a new book that details some of the experiences that he had and some of the reporting that he has done. It's titled A Season in Bethlehem on holy war in a sacred place and it's published by the Free Press. And roughly speaking talks about some of the events in between the fall of 2000 when what has been called the second intifada began. The spring of 2002 and culminates with his

account of the siege of the church there in Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity that is marked as the place where Jesus was born. We'll be talking with him in here in the next hour and questions of course are welcome all we ask of people who call in is that their brief so that we can keep the program moving but anyone is welcome to call the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us around Illinois or Indiana. Also if you might happen to be listening on the internet you may also use the toll free line that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. I guess I should say if you're listening on the Internet and you're in the United States you can use the toll free line 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 otherwise here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Mr. Hammer. Hello. Hello. Thanks for talking with us. Sure. You had some experience in the before you went to Israel had some experience as a foreign correspondent

and I'm sure covering conflict in Africa but I guess I wonder whether you feel that any of that really prepared you for for Israel and that conflict when you went there. Well certainly I was used to combat situations and being under fire having been in Liberia Somalia Rwanda even in South America somewhat and Kosovo the Balkans. But I wasn't really prepared for the complexities of the of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mastering all of the details and being kind of a yoyo going back and forth between the Palestinian narrative and the and the Israeli narrative and this sort of parsing of affairs and the infant infinitesimal details that are that are squabbled over and contested really. It is impossible to grasp you know even even even even in a life time.

Yeah well that I'm sure that that is the challenge because as you say there are a variety of perspectives. There is a long history which is contested and as a reporter I'm sure that no matter what you write someone is going to say well you're wrong about this you got that wrong and then we'll tell you just exactly what it should be reflecting whatever their particular point of view or agenda is. So it's a problem with being or perhaps one of the. I don't I wouldn't call it necessarily a problem but one of the aspects of being a journalist in the Middle East is that you're you're an official you're in a fishbowl and passions are incredibly high over this this relatively tiny patch of territory with not so many people in it arouses interest and passion and hostility all around the world. And so everything that you say is interpreted and dissected and certainly everything you say goes out on the Internet.

Right. Right goes out on the Internet of course I write for Newsweek so that carries that you know additional. And additional scrutiny and because it's so it's mainstream it's read by so many people to begin with so it just reverberates down and down and I never almost every piece I write provokes some sort of response. It's invariable in that you know either it's a danger or it's anger from the left or anger from the right anger for the Palestinian camp anger from the pro Sharon camp for the Peace Now camp My philosophy is if you and you know if you get everybody across the board angry at you at one time or another then you know you're doing a good job. You know I think that you know one of things that journalists have tried to do in dealing with the story given the fact that it is complex is to try to find a manageable kind of story something that they can tell that will allow them to explore the bigger themes. And it seems that that's in choosing to write about Bethlehem that seems to that that's what that was your tactic in your approach to try to do that exactly.

I wanted to do as I say in the introduction to the book a biography of a place to pick one town and I was to learn everything I could about it and humanize the characters and use it as a microcosm for what's going on around during this whole tumultuous period. And Effingham for various reasons just seem to fit the bill perfectly well want to talk a little bit more about about Bethlehem. What kind of a place is it. It's about five miles south of Jerusalem much closer to Jerusalem that I want to think. I was unprepared for was how close things are in the Middle East especially this area so that you leave Jerusalem. You drive down the main highway you cross a checkpoint you're suddenly in a different world you know within within 10 minutes. So I was about five miles south of Jerusalem the center of Jerusalem. It's a hilly town it's up in that you Dan hills just like that just like Jerusalem landscape is similar. Very arid place very sort of haphazard in its construction just sort of scattered across.

Scattered over the hills are just you know hundreds and thousands of stone houses blocky houses typical Arab constructions. And then in the in the very center of the City the epicenter of the city consists of the old town. Originally built into biblical times rebuilt by the biz in the Byzantine era and rebuilt again in the Crusader era in the Old City. But the church that was called Manger Square and the Church of the nativities kind of fortress like very fortress like complex that really has defined benefit having been the heart of the city for fifteen hundred years of course it was built over the the manger of the grotto where Christians say that Jesus was born. So it's a complex fascinating place and it has a lot of different population groups and. You know a lot of friction even in normal times. You went there right around the time of the

beginning of what was a is called the Second Intifada which began in the fall of 2000 and you know in other interviews I think I've used this as a jumping off point because it's. I have never quite been able to understand completely what happened and I think about the fact that just a matter of days before this happened before Ariel Sharon made his ill fated visit to the Temple Mount. There we were reading stories about. Just in fact how good things were and how promising things were and one of the things that I remember is a story about how Yasser Arafat had gone to dinner at the home of the previous prime minister who Brock. And it was described as being one of the best meetings the man had ever had and then in a matter of days a handful of days things completely fell apart. And then we saw the beginning of now in a period of some of the worst violence in a long long time. And I guess I had never quite been able to understand how things went from when it appeared and maybe

that was the issue. It appeared on the surface that things where there was reason to be optimistic and in such a short period of time things got so bad. Well I think you have to look at Camp David let's use Camp David as a starting point. Because this was viewed by Israelis and Palestinians as the the the opportunity for a final settlement. Barach was looking for something like sweeping Iraq sweeping to make sweeping concessions that he thought would win. It was basically a take it or leave it offer that he figured would solve the problem forever. Two states living side by side in peace and harmony and economic prosperity. If I didn't like the offer he didn't make a counteroffer Despite Bill Clinton's best efforts to bring these two sides together. Camp David collapsed when Camp David ended in July 2000 without without an agreement. It really was quite a shock

to I think to both sides and I think confirms suspicions on both sides of the worst intentions of the other the Palestinians believe that the Israelis were not serious because they accepted Arafat's version of events of the offer was unacceptable and he had to turn it down. Israelis saw the Palestinians as ultimately not really interested in peace and wanting to drive the Jews to the sea. So many Palestinians had said publicly and privately. And so you have this incredible tension. Already But oh you talk about this meeting between our fight in Iraq it was more something that was attempted even after Camp David to salvage salvage things find another way. But still with this tremendous sense of disappointment and bitterness and anger and it really required a spark to set it off and the spark of course was our strong visit to the temple mount you know temper twenty nine thousand just this past summer I had an opportunity to talk with an Israeli journalist who had written a book about what was happening at

this very time and who apparently had some access to the people who were involved in the goshi actions for the Israelis and the Palestinians on both sides talking about the fact that what that at that point when when things seemed to have broken down at Camp David there was the door hadn't completely been closed. There was the idea that the talks were supposed to continue and that in fact what I think one of the things that this journalist concluded was that the Clinton administration really dropped the ball by turning away from the issue for a period of months as it wasn't really until the beginning of the next year did they actively really get involved in there again and the suggestion was that if indeed the administration had had again pushed the two sides to get back to talking that maybe something could have been worked out that it wasn't necessarily the end when it looked as it as it looked. Might have been a case I know for a fact that several of the

sort of thing off of the Camp David participants were were meeting and walking around Jerusalem actually walking the streets in those in those weeks after the collapse of the talks in July and August and saying you know what. We can solve this problem. We you know we have this big disagreement of the division of Jerusalem for instance is one thorny problem we have to address the one you know and then they would walk the streets and say this tree could be yours the street could be ours and literally trying to redraw the map as one of the last ditch effort to get around these problems that have not been resolved at Camp David. I also know that Ariel Sharon's trip plan trip you know he telegraphed this well in advance I mean he made his intentions known. He was at the time involved in a political battle with Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud Party and the generally accepted interpretation of that trip was that it was a

political move. To assert Israeli dominance over this sacred patch of a very disputed land and say that Israel is this belongs to Israel. We have sovereignty we will not give up sovereignty. It was a message that his that the right wing really would have been eager to hear. But it was very incendiary given the. Given the background given the emotions of the time and there was a desperate attempt by Arafat's and others in the Palestinian Authority to stop this visit from Sharon I mean pleased they had Baracoa last minute phone call I think even a personal meeting saying Don't let it take place you know these people are angry. If you go to the Temple Mount and explore Arafat's it will have an explosion on my hands and I don't think I can control it. Now this of course is one version is another version that says wanted this he was looking for a pretext to start the whole thing and that he could have asked for anything better but Sharon's trip to the church became known.

The wheels are set in motion for the intifada. So who knows. Yeah well that's going for the question and I have some. Cause we get to. It seems that you know when people talk about why the process broke down at that point or why the more recent attempts what and what has been called the roadmap didn't succeed. That if you ask the leadership on the the two sides the Israeli government and Palestinian leaders if you ask well what happened they will point to the other side and say they did not fulfill the commitments they made. We don't even believe they intended to. Then if you ask people who maybe aren't not quite so partisan then they might be likely to say Well in fact both sides are right. Neither of them did fulfill the commitments they made and we wonder whether in fact they really intended to and I guess whether you can you say in fact that. One or the other of the parties was more at fault or would you say that in fact there was there was real failure to

commit on both sides. I think there was real failure to commit on both sides. But I think that. Sure I think that Mahmoud Abbas even prime minister managed to achieve a cease fire with Hamas very difficult extremely protracted negotiation but it resulted in an offer an agreement by the radicals that there would be no violence for three months called a halt not something extremely difficult for the Palestinian government to achieve because of the deep level of distrust of the Israelis at that point. I don't think that the Israeli government or Israeli government never believed it they began knocking at the second it took place they refused to accept that they said this is now. Between us and the Palestinians this is between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas that has nothing to do with us and we don't buy it anyway I mean these people are just using this as an excuse to rearm.

So even though there was a ceasefire in place and there was no violence in fact the Israelis discounted it and they continued the same sort of policies that have been going on for years which is continued the incursions into the West Bank continue targeting and killing militants basically acting as if this ceasefire never existed. So to my mind there was an opportunity lost there. Who knows if what would happen after those three months had been up had Israel not made these these these continued its violence but I I believe that Israel undermined possibly deliberately Abbas's efforts at that particular that very crucial very sensitive point. Let me introduce Again our guest and we'll get some callers in here we're talking with Joshua Hammer He is Newsweek magazine's Jerusalem bureau chief. He has worked at Newsweek since 1988 and has also served as the magazine's bureau chief in Nairobi Buenos Aires Los Angeles and Berlin and has written a book

about some of what he has seen the events he's covered in the Middle East the past couple of years the book is titled A Season in Bethlehem on holy war in a sacred place and it's published by the free press and we have a number of callers in fact the lines are full. And again we appreciate it. People can be brief. We want to get as many callers as we can. We start with someone in Champaign line one. Well yes hi. I have to be brief because I'm and I'm speaking from my my work. But you started to get at some truth in your last statement about hoose who is really at fault here. But you really ought to apply that to the entire situation in the entire history of this conflict even though there is some fault on both sides. The vast amount of fault is on the Israeli side. I speak as a Jew and in saying this as somebody who once you know believe that if you you know didn't the nonsense that we're told about Israel and Israel's good intentions in Israel's desire for peace all throughout this process especially through the Oslo process

Israel has acted in bad faith. We need less phony moral balance and more honesty about who is behind the destruction of the Palestinian people. They're there to have been defeated now they're being dissed just destroyed. And you know it's it's it's heartbreaking and there are you know any any kind of balance is in this you know any kind of phony moral balance just denies what the reality of this situation is. Thank you very much. Right. Mr. Hammer you want to comment on that at all. Oh it's certainly an unusual statement coming from a American Jew or because. Having traveled the country extensively over the last couple weeks talking about the subject I found that there is overwhelming support American support especially among Jewish communities for. For Israel sometimes I think one reflects on reflectingly and

reflectively supporting Ariel Sharon equating you know the Sharon policies we have with Israel. I think I would agree to some extent that especially over the last three years the policies of this Israeli government particular and Ariel Sharon's policies have made the situation far far worse that he is he doesn't have any real interest in peace that he is brutalizing the population there. That he has no desire for compromise that his interests are not his intent is not sincere. On the other hand I would also question Palestinian charities as well but I do believe that Sharon has been very provocative and that there have been repeated attempts repeated opportunities along the way over the last three years when there could have been some sort of peace achieved some sort of negotiation progress made that the Israeli government there's a responsibility for for ruining. So to some extent I agree with that caller.

Well the thing is too though you know all of the all of those statements you just made about Ariel Sharon I'm sure have. Been made and will be will be made about us or our fight. You know so you really have to. I guess I have a hard time understanding what exactly the motivation on the Palestinian side is particularly for those people who continue to advocate engage in violence. I would agree that I mean I think that our fight did make this a calculated risky decision. Several years ago in late 2000 early 2001 that he would take Intifada from a stone throwing firebombing rebellion uprising. It is something much more organized and some tough and violent and using using life using using arms. And this was in retrospect a you know a terrible decision that brought you know at first he was up against an adversary who is you know every bit as committed to using violence as he was.

So then you then you had. The sort of spiraling violence in these two sides locked into into this into the cycle. They couldn't break out of so. But I I think that there were times when the if the violence could have been there could have been opportunities taken to change the site change the course of this there. And and as I watched it the breaking of these the breaking of cease fires was invariably almost always initiated by the Israeli government. A very provocative statement but I've been there and I've watched this for I think the roadmap is a perfect example of this I mean you had a hood now you could have given the hood an opportunity to work I mean granted Hamas is not. Exactly. An organization that merits trust. But you have to start somewhere you have to take a leap of faith. If they did get this three month cease fire Israel acted like it didn't exist and continue killing militants guaranteeing that it was going to fail and I'm all I'm saying is that repeatedly in the last couple of years

it's been exactly that way. There have been times when our fight has succeeded in getting cease fires on the table getting quiet asking for you know in an attempt to see some changes on the ground. And the government of Ariel Sharon has always responded by killing more militants by by refusing to answer that cease fire with some something that would continue. This that would allow some sort of peace process to to set in. Almost as if there's a desire for this to fail. Let's go next to Champaign County line to you. Well good morning. I'm glad to hear some of what you said just there about when you were talking about a lot of the undermining of any credibility to Arafat's stance and as you say and in engineering ceasefires goes back to the myth of the

good offer at Camp David. It wasn't a good offer it was asking Arafat to to run a Bantustan and if it wasn't a matter of issuing violence it was a matter of turning violence on his own people and basically the U.S. and Israel want the Palestinians to have a civil war they don't want to do the killing themselves they want to have a quisling government to do it for them. And anything less than that won't be acceptable and that's that's a big problem because that there is there's no support for that at all in the popular Palestinian population and not even in the Palestinian Authority at this point. You didn't mention Taba and the result of them and you have a good point. And Mr. Carter. That the myth of the good a good offer and then the myth of the complete rejection which is undermined by Tomba talk about it but actually I have another problem with you and that's your. Your article in Mother Jones I

advise people to go to Powell solidarity this is for the Palestinian Palestinian solidarity movement dot org and look at their action alert right to Mother Jones about an article that you sort of hacked together according to one either that's crap one of hacked together is absolute nonsense whether one should one should take your denial in mind and then look at the evidence presented by a colleague of Rachel Corrie's at on this website Powell solidarity mind they were invited to and everybody to look at the response that I'm about to put online and the idea that this is cobbled together from this. It's International Solidarity Movement member accuse me of doing from a quote unquote right wing websites is thoroughly nonsensical. Let's put the allegations of plagiarism aside that we can discuss there without reference to Dershowitz and we'll deal with them once it is his or his. But let's talk about why you're going after a nonviolent movement in the way that

you're going after. Because it's a it's not a nonviolent and certainly is it certainly is not it's any movement any move. I don't like these people I don't like these people and I have been I have been accused by both the Israelis and the Palestinians of being either pros to pro pro israel your two prior actually I'm on honest reporting dotcoms list of 10 of the 10 journalists in the United States who are considered to be reflectively anti Sharon ever flexibly a club pro Palestinian. Well you know what I find it where you know comedy is evil or it's basically reflexive reply was really the fact of the matter is that the International Solidarity Movement is a group of young people who have gone down there their only agenda is to express support for. Blind support for the Palestinian clause caused blind support for Yasser Arafat's blind support for the policy of suicide bombings I asked this fellow on the air who why does your group why does the ISI visit the families of suicide bombers and why do you not visit the families of victims of suicide bombers in Israel. He could not come up with a response. You

said that's somebody else's job I'm sorry. Any group any group that showers all of its all of its condolences and all of its commiseration on the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who have killed Israelis and make no effort no spitting. That's a miscarriage three years another side of it is a group that I have no respect for and I just I don't want internship Piro of the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Have you sat down and talked to him about this and you know I have talked at length I have not talked to Mr. Shapiro I have talked at length with the fellow who made these outlandish accusations among which was if you quote If you quote an Israeli spokesman responding to allegations then that makes you in the camp of the Israeli spokesman you're quoting. Every time I quoted an Israeli spokesman answering allegations an Israeli Defense Force spokesman this person attacked me for buying the Israeli line. These people have never heard of anything of objective journalism. These people are so reflexive we in the camp of violence of armed risk of armed resistance that's that they are. We're

going to we're going to descend and we're going to leave me blind to the suffering that Palestinian militants and suicide bombers have caused in Israel. At the same time I am not denying that Israeli policy has caused tremendous suffering in the Palestinian territories. No question about it. I view both sides as being at fault here. The problem with these ISTM people is that they are completely unequivocally blind to the actions to the suffering that is going on in Israel completely blind I've seen it with my own eyes. I don't want to talk about the subject anymore and I well we're going to have to move on because we do have other callers. We're already past the midpoint. Let me again introduce our guest We're speaking with Joshua Hammer He is the Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek magazine and has been there for a couple of years now writing about the Middle East he's also been the bureau chief in some other places including Nairobi Buenos Aires and Los Angeles and Berlin. He has a new book. That's about some of what he has seen some reporting that he's done it's title A Season in Bethlehem on holy war in a sacred place. The Free Press the publisher

again to another call here Bloomington Indiana. Line number four. Hello. Hi just to continue reviewing Camp David and I'm revise some revised history. At Camp David Israel virtually gave Yes or Arafat everything he was asking for at Camp David just short short of Israel's committing suicide that Israel even granted Arafat part of Jerusalem. I mean that's something that if nobody thought they would do that not only does Arafat refuse to take yes for an answer but he launches the suicide murder offensive as a result of being granted everything virtually that he was asking for. And how do you justify this launching of a suicide murder offensive. Well Ariel Sharon visited the temple mount. I mean gracious. Got to you know I'm revising history. Ariel Sharon cleared his visit to the temple mount if that matters. And why shouldn't any religious person be able to peacefully visit the most holy

sacred site of his religion in his own country in the first place. Korea is not a religious person our shul is a completely secular Jew has not a religious bone in his body. In the in the second place who was not in a position at that point to veto a visit so we did not have in his power to do so in a third place. Yes you're always entitled to do that. But Sharon knew perfectly well the emotions that that visit would provoke he knew the political context that he was that he knew about the failure of Camp David. He knew that that move would almost what but it moving. Across the Temple Mount surrounded by his sunglass wearing body guards by dozens of Israeli troops with an assertion of sovereignty a brutal assertion of sovereignty that would almost certainly provoke the kind of violence kind of ignite the kind of anger that you saw. This was a deliberate provocative movement move by Sharon and to say that it was some innocent expression of the

rights of a religious person to to view the Temple Mount is either disingenuous or naive. Let me ask you one more question. Yes please discuss the morality of recruiting children from kindergarten indoctrinating them in who would your son consider your son or your daughter indoctrinating them to blow themselves to just hear me. Three minutes ago talking about the. I feel like I feel like when you talk about this issue people just you know they fear what they want to hear. Did you did you hear me just dealing with this defender of the International Solidarity Movement and telling him that I thought this group was really crossing the line by its reflexive defense of suicide bombers and its its visits its condole the condolence calls that it put pays on the families of Palestinians who have blown themselves up it's a it's a it's a brutal. Inexcusable act. I believe it is completely. It was a huge miscalculation it robbed the Palestinians of

any support that they might have had and and is greatly responsible and Dave gave Ariel Sharon an opening to crush them especially after 9/11 with the with the open support of the Bush administration. So clearly it was both morally indefensible and as a tactic extremely stupid. Let me just pick on one other point that the caller made and I want to go on to some other folks and that is the degree to which a Yasser Arafat is directly responsible for directing ordered you know whatever kind of language you want to use the violence that. We have seen the great unanswered question of course is just how much. And it's you know a question that's been raised for the last three years is how much control has over this. You know one can look at empirical evidence and make a few few statements. I think one is that at the very beginning of the

intifada the anger on the streets especially that provoked by the killings by Israeli troops of dozens of kids who were throwing rocks. No question this happened Israeli. We know it. We know it is a fact Israel shoots down children claiming that rocks are potential lethal weapons. In my mind equally indefensible and at any rate Hamas and Islamic Jihad at that point were gaining popularity on the streets and is this kind of wave of violence in the first few days. I think it's pretty clear sense that he was losing popular support the fights I was seen as you know perhaps not strong enough not militant enough made a decision fairly early on that fossil was going to take back control of the streets and definitely gave the green light to militarized the Intifada to start sniper attacks to start killing settlers to lob some Martyrs Brigades carry these acts of this the armed wing of Fatah.

All this was going on with Arafat's support I mean to say that it wasn't is to just deny the fact that Fatah is a fight is the chairman of Fatah the Fatah fighters were carrying out killings it's that simple. But I think at some point the movement sort of got away from it it became this monster that he created he created a monster and then at some point it simply became too difficult for him to. It gained its own momentum and an R5 found himself in with less and less power to stop it. So I believe. He started it but then couldn't stop the next callers and follow line 3 0 0 0. Could you talk about the settlement situation there the settlement I mean these are occupied territory and there are Jewish settlements built in the occupied territories and then the Israeli army has to protect the settlements and that's part of the problem here among many of the problems

there. And also in conjunction with that the American Zionist movement which I think is in conjunction with that I'll hang up and listen thank you. All right. I think that obviously with the Mitchell report in 2001 Senator former Senator George Mitchell's authoritative report on the intifada said that settlements are the biggest single issue preventing any kind of peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians. I picked up the New York Times today and saw that in spite of all of the pressures all of the Palestinian outrage over the existence of these settlements American objections today the Israeli government also is moving ahead and building 600 more units in three settlements in the West Bank. You know it's just. It's inexplicable to me. It's just it's the settlements are already so provocative that to continue to expand them as Ariel Sharon is doing

just makes any any hope for a peace deal just impossible. And so I think that it's it's a huge huge problem. And but I don't think that Ariel Sharon is serious about dealing with it I think that if anything he wants to go down in history as a prime minister who cemented the hold of the Jewish people over the occupied territories rather than somebody who withdrew from them. And that's fundamentally what this conflict is about. The other question had to do with perhaps you know the degree to which American supporters of Israel are they part of the problem. And so I think there. The problem I mean I guess I don't know how well it's a very strong strong and and focal group and I don't know to what extent George Bush listens to them or to what extent or how much that plays into his decision making how much the fact that there

seems to be a natural He seems very simpatico with Sharon and very much you know has pretty much given Sharon a long leash and let him do basically whatever he wants short of killing Arafat's. So I think to some extent the Zionist movement the I'm I mean the american Well you know there's I don't I want to belabor this too long but Zionism you can be a Zionist and not be in favor of the occupying the territories. You know there are. So let's let's be careful about the funding our terms we talk about American Zionists we talk about people who support the state of Israel we talk about people who support you know the conquest of Judeo and summary of the occupied territories. Let's go to champagne. Another caller here line two. Hello. Hi. I have a few questions but your last comment about American Zionists being part of problem. If you want to bring that up you could just as well say that the Arab states that support Hamas a part of the problem. So but

leaving that aside I agree that the road map has some major problems and the problems have to do as you say with the settlements and also the requirement to dismantle the terrorist organizations Hamas and so on so forth. A ceasefire isn't dismantling in a ceasefire certainly did not stop the suicide bombings. So I mean though you put the blame on for breaking the cease fire on Israel to cease fire wasn't the road map the road map required something else. So I think there is there is a need to really look at what it is we're talking about which talk about an ongoing war where there's certain groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that say we want to wipe out the state of Israel and kill all Jews and they attempt to do it in whatever way they can. Those in Gaza can't because for the most part they're stopped from from moving into into Israel proper. Let me just get off I just want to bring up one other point and I'll hear your response I'd like you to explore if you would

some if you've read it. Dershowitz his book about the case for Israel the few If you haven't read it just go off. Because I just came out while I've been on this US toward seven and a minute sit down and read anything but I would forward to read it. The second incident or your first question about Hamas Islamic Jihad as you know it's a really good question and it just keeps coming up in all my you know my talks. Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority crack down. Why don't they fulfill their end of the road. Their their obligations and carry out these massive arrests and seizure of weapons. The answers to those questions are well first of all I'm not positive that the Palestinian Authority at the moment has the capacity to do it. The security force of the capacity to do that part of that is Arafat's part.

The fact that Arafat's controls half the security forces so they're loyal to him the security forces are divided and chaotic and they are there have several different commanders and it's a mess. So that's the first problem. It's abilities. Second of all I would say will the general feeling among the Palestinian Authority leaders is that they don't trust Ariel Sharon. They're not going to crack down on these groups and probably provoke almost certainly provoke you know massive unrest in the streets because remember these groups are very popular. They'll be shooting back they'll be blood spilled. Palestinians will die. The Palestinian Authority leaders that I've talked to say why should we do this when we don't have any. We don't have any guarantee from Sharon that you know that there's going to be any reward for this kind of civil war that we're provoking in our own society. There's such distrust of Ariel Sharon that they're not willing to make that step and that's the reason that the road map has been due because both neither side trusts the other. And the U.S. has not been there to forcefully say you know to

act as a referee. So you end up just with both sides trading accusations distrusting each other hating each other and you know Sharon keeps building the settlements the Palestinian authority refuses to take action against Hamas and it goes on and on. Yes but if I could just stay at heel at least the grade is and supposedly he has control over them and yet he doesn't crack down on the Al Aksa Brigade from what I've been hearing from European diplomats is that they may be even more out of control than Hamas and Islamic Jihad I mean I don't believe that the OXO Martyrs Brigades or even agree to a cease fire with Abbas I believe it was just Hamas and Islamic Jihad So they are a wild card in all this and it's not that easy to just move in and crackdown on these groups they're deeply embedded in policy and society. They have huge support of the Palestinian Authority is weak it's not even it's not particularly popular it's very unpopular and they don't

and they're not getting any signs from Israel that there's going to be any reward at the end of it so all of this is working to you know prevent this kind of massive crackdown that the Americans and the Israelis are demanding. We have just about five minutes. I'd like to include least one other caller. Next in line is Gibson city. So go there. Line 1. Hello hello. Yes I just want to say that I was in the West Bank several for a month in the summer and part of Christian Peacemaker Team and were a nonviolent presence in Hebron we do have an apartment there people live there full time and we document human rights violations and one of the things that we do do is. While I wasn't there well though there was a coup in progress. But we do have children going to school and the common everyday person I'm not you know I get what I'm trying to say is that there is two groups to me there there's the group. And it's not any of the really

Palestinian thing it's the group that wants them by violence and they don't want to make any kind. They want to make any They want to have it their way and I have seen and talked to peacemakers on both sides that want to settle it peacefully and I guess one of my heroes over there is Rabbi Eric Edelman who is head of have Rabbi for human rights issues and I think was kind of interesting about talking this way and he confessed but he also is a very devout Jew and considers that what they're doing to the Palestinians is wrong not the right way of obtaining or maintaining a Palestinian state. And I so agree with him and I also know a lady that has started the school not a school but like a summer camp for children and she has a psychologist and a couple teachers and what she does with the children is help them to help them cope with

systematic things they've gone through and also teaching them nonviolence and I guess that gives me hope. I've met more people on both sides I just really really admire and I would say there is a. For me as a Christian there is a Christian love there that I didn't. I just said you know these people are against all the odds and I think the power of inference that tells you that we are not going to be the ones that settle it and I yes my my question is if my last figures are correct we are giving or handing over or guarantee Israel 2.7 billion not million but billion aid and most of the military aid and I guess it would that be a point of starting when we as U.S. citizens you know complaining and

asking and our government to be more responsible has money. And then I'll say goodbye. OK. Well yeah we know we have got a couple minutes left so you can pick up on anything. Yeah I think there are some little small rays of hope here and there. The rabbi says human rights is an interesting group and never see their newsletters and I mean it's quite interesting to have a Jewish group like that religious group keeping tabs on what it views as Israeli human rights abuses. And in the in the West Bank so they have a sort of sense of authenticity about them and you know the question about American aid. Well you know the United States has in the past used the leverage of financial aid to try to reform Israeli policy in the early 1990s. They used withdrew money from these loan guarantees to

Israel. For every dollar that was spent in the occupied territories the US took away one dollar of these loan guarantees and it's threatening to do it again this time around as Sharon continues to build the fence and continues to expand the settlements in defiance of the entire world. But you know they just this this particular American administration just doesn't seem to be willing to push too hard. They just don't want to crack the whip and they're unwilling to alienate Sharon or alienate the pro-Israel camp year to do anything anything beyond a couple of mild words words of rebuke and I think it's a problem. I think this government has to face up to what the Sharon government is doing there and how antithetical to peace his policies are and maybe use money as a leverage leverage as a cudgel in a way that it hasn't been willing to do so in the past. We're going to have to stop. We've used the time and discuss the general

issue perhaps not given very much attention to the book. But if people are interested in reading some of Joshua Hammer's writing of course you can see it in Newsweek. But some of his reporting and some sea experiences over the past couple of years now you can look for his book A Season in Bethlehem on holy war in a sacred places published by the Free Press. It's out now Joshua Hammer is the bureau chief Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek magazine. And thanks very much for talking with us. Great you're welcome Bridget. Interesting.