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The International Solidarity Movement and Tikkun
Two distinct but interrelated conflicts exist within the Middle
East. One involves the struggle of control over territory and
resources claimed by Jews and Arabs within Israel and Palestine,
followed by subsequent disputes over border negotiations. The
second subsumes the regional struggle over this land, into an
existential debate that questions the foundation of a Jewish nation
amidst a large bloc of Arab states. Despite a cycle of bloodshed
and negotiation between Israel and Arab nations, particularly
between Jews and Palestinians inhabiting Israel and Palestine, the
present issue has remained largely unabated without any realistic
notions for a genuine peace within the Middle East. Examining the
framework and methods of two organizations seeking to affect change
in Israel and Palestine will underscore the important processes and
conditions necessary today for future peace and justice, in what
otherwise appears to be a perpetual cycle of violence and
struggle.Motivated by harsh realities of anti-Semitism and Jewish
persecution, the origins of the conflict are historically rooted
within the Jewish migration to Palestine in hopes of returning to
the biblical land of ancestors. Conflict arose between Jews and
Arabs out of claims to the same land while denying the other;
endorsed by neighboring Arab nations, Palestinian sentiment against
Jewish sovereignty furthered the rift within the landlocked region
of Israel and Palestine. Israels gradual ascension of territorial
dominion within Israel/Palestine, through military power and
political aid (complemented by its status as a democracy), was met
by Palestinian resistance to Jewish sovereignty and the
aforementioned occupation of arguably Palestinian lands. The
contemporary issue focused herein addresses Israeli-conducted
structural violence towards Palestinian inhabitants and
Palestinian-conducted direct violence towards Israeli homeland
security. This clash is seen through Israeli confiscations of
Palestinian lands (e.g. West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and
subsequent discriminations in access to housing and land occupied
by Israel, resulting in indirect infringements upon Palestinian
human rights, under the name of Israeli homeland security. Most
important among the grievances against Palestine is their
retaliation against Israel mounted through acts of terror, wherein
direct violations of human life are incurred, as last resorts
against the structural infractions imposed upon Palestine namely
Occupation and apartheid. Without initial reasons for choosing this
subject matter, I will investigate the framework and methods by
which the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Tikkun
address issues and grievances between the two states. An analysis
into their strengths and weaknesses will further reflect particular
settings necessary for peace and justice within the cyclical
violence of the Middle East.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) applies through
nonviolent means direct intervention in Palestine, in order to
alleviate the structural damage inflicted upon Palestinian
inhabitants by Israeli government and occupation forces. The ISM
officially describes itself as a Palestinian-led movement of
Palestinian and International activists working for Palestinian
freedom and an end to Occupation. We utilize nonviolent,
direct-action methods of resistance to confront illegal Israeli
occupation forces and policies. The ISM strives for four goals:
recruiting international volunteers to partake in non-violent
resistance; protecting Palestinians from physical violence incurred
from Israeli soldiers and settlers; pressuring news media in an
effort to direct public opinion towards the illegality and
brutality of the Occupation; establishing divestment campaigns to
place economic pressure upon Israel analogous to the international
pressure which ended the South African apartheid regimes. The ISM
is currently restructuring internal problems and strategies, thus
withholding Palestinian campaigns to be announced at the beginning
of next year. Previous projects however included campaigns to save
the Palestinian olive harvest, whereby interventionists assisted
olive pickers from settler violence, as well as from military
intimidation and encroachment. In place of individual acts of
humanitarian aid, the ISM introduced sit-ins and demonstrations at
the olive groves, amongst various other tactics of resistance.
Though widely known for its magazine as the liberal alternative
to Jewish conservatism and spiritual deadness in the Jewish world,
Tikkun also shares its discourse within a community of dialogue and
social campaigning. Tikkun acknowledges external justice,
suffering, and ecological numbness as found not only in economic
and political arrangements, but in our lack of spiritual
consciousness and fulfillment. The organization ties these concerns
by fostering spiritual awareness and inner change, in order to
reshape American political and economic institution according to
not only the maximization of wealth and power, but the maximization
of love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and awe and
wonder at the glory of the universe. Thus the Tikkun community
endeavors to nurture a place where we can talk about these ideas
and give each other mutual support for being committed to large
scale transformation of the world. Conferences, trainings,
discussion groups, educational material, and publicity serve
crucial roles in propagating Tikkun discourse. The project for
peace in Israel and Palestine seeks to develop a document outlining
a national strategy of education, aimed to end the Occupation;
further steps include an establishment of campus networks,
furthering the education of policy makers and the shaping of public
opinion.
The ISM accounts for the public a partial view of the structural
damage within Palestine. The ISM admits that the Palestinian
response over the years have included attempts at armed struggle
but mostly peaceful protests, demonstrations, and appeals to
Israeli courts. Moreover, the ISM considers the armed retaliations
by Palestinians as their right, and insignificant amongst the vast
majority of Palestinians who peacefully desire justice and respect
as treatment from Israelis. Thus literature within the ISM clearly
portrays Palestinians as victims of ongoing violence applied
through occupation and military intimidation. More specifically,
the issue is narrowly defined as an illegal denial of the most
fundamental of human rights, meant to clear Palestinians from their
native lands. In the Berkeley chapter ISM meetings, sentiment is
absolute. The room before the meeting convenes and after it
adjourns frequently includes gossip and chatter lamenting the
horrors of Occupation and the apartheid wall in Palestine. In
certain areas of Palestine, the strategic construction of the wall
effectively divides Palestinian farmers from the farmland beyond,
forcing farmers to travel back and forth and thus limiting
agricultural cultivation due to intimidation and inconvenience. In
the summer of 2000, Terry (last name undisclosed) and her small
group of volunteers intervened frequently on behalf of farmers in
Qalqilia, surveying their plight and providing requested aid. She
recounts dozens of scenarios involving harassment and misadventures
at gates barring entrance and exit within the wall. Other
grievances during meetings included a recent bulldozing of
thousands of Palestinian homes, leaving inhabitants homeless in the
midst of Israeli settler violence and discrimination. These are one
of countless daily incidents in Palestine; Occupation obstructs
human rights and needs, creating structural damage to the lives of
Palestinians. Terry further explains that the movement as a whole
operates on a consensus principle, a decision making process
whereby small groups proceed if and only if all participants
unanimously agree upon the decision. This principle is not only
implicit within chapter meetings where each order of the day must
be thoroughly discussed and agreed upon before continuing, but also
within affinity groups consisting of international activists where
a quick consensus situated in the midst of Palestinian conflict
must be established in as little as sixty seconds. The consensus
model hence reinforces the absolute, partial stance members take in
support against Palestinian injustice. An intermittent meeting
attendee, Bashir (last name undisclosed) says, Typically most
participants of social action groups are directly connected to the
conflict, but the people involved in ISM are very diverse and
different in age, background and ethnicity. Though the social
makeup of the ISM is diverse, the outlook held within are
universally agreed upon; there is little disagreement or discussion
around the underlying tenets established therein. The consensus
against the issues of Occupation and structural violence is not a
matter of racial or religious solidarity, but one of convicted
truth. In terms of conflict, ISM nonviolent interventionists
experience a microcosmic world of struggle between the victims and
the oppressors, i.e. between victimized Palestinian farmers and
incriminating Israeli military/paramilitary forces. Under the
umbrella of humanitarian principle, the situation inevitably
becomes black and white, narrowly framed to outsiders as an
absolute violation of human rights lacking reproach.
Tikkun defines itself as an organization without a laundry lists
of demands these demands do not flow from a shared theoretical
perspective; instead, it views itself as part of a larger movement
for healing and transformation of the planet within the framework
of a spiritual consciousness. Like ISMs strict orientation towards
Palestinian occupation and human rights abuse as the terminal
motivation for action, Tikkun affirms ISMs mission by acknowledging
the human rights issues impinged within Palestine. However, Tikkun
deals balance to the equation by addressing the needs of Israel.
The organizations convictions also describe a need to recognize
Jewish rights to ownership and maintenance of their own homeland,
defined by pre-1967 borders; also included are needs of Israeli
control over the Jewish section of Jerusalem. These existential
barriers to Jewish reconciliation pale however to the acts of
terror conducted against Israel by inhabitants of Palestine. Far
from an outcry denouncing instances of atrocities in the wake of
terrorism, Tikkun instead argues for a strategy of nonviolent civil
disobedience against Israeli occupation and settlement violence.
Tikkun further defends this belief in light of potential arguments
rebuking the structural damage inflicted upon Palestine, stating
that the breakthrough necessary to free Palestinians from
Occupation will only come when the Israeli people feel enough
safety to contemplate arrangements based on trust. Tikkun thus
places priority upon human and civil rights while maintaining a
level hindsight: the organization views the structural damage as
significantly deliberate and unwarranted, whereas the retaliatory
acts of terror are framed as an unjustifiable yet understandable
resort. Though both the ISM and Tikkun place greater emphasis in
their literature upon Palestinian rights and humanitarian
principles, Tikkun takes one step further in realizing the
importance of Israeli security and prevention of paranoia and fear
naturally generated from such acts of terror. Hitherto the issues
expounded by Tikkun may be viewed as a laundry-list of problems and
demands; however, the struggle in the Middle East is self-contained
within a much greater concern over the broad spiritual dimension of
the conflict. The terminal cause for alarm and action is not only
the simultaneous conflict incurred between both sides but also the
breakdown of the Jewish character, where a state with many Jews is
not a Jewish state unless it embodies an ethos of love and justice
and becomes a living proof that healing and transformation is
possible. Tikkun discourse is thick with references encompassing
the spiritual gamut of universal fulfillment, consciousness, love,
inner healing and change hence the names translation in Hebrew:
healing, repair and transformation. Israel, as the focus of Jewish
tradition, fails as a Jewish state to meet these expectations of a
united, common perspective on universal spiritual values.Noticeably
the spiritual framing of issues by Tikkun subsumes the pragmatic,
partial and direct approach employed by the ISM. Though Tikkun
takes into consideration the same injustices and violations as
accounted by the ISM, the focus of the two groups are entirely
different. ISM manages interventionists positioned abroad in
Palestine, with the concentrated role of damage control, assisting
the Palestinians against a distinguished opposition. Tikkun
however, operates at home, with the central community far removed
from the conflict in the Middle East. By placing an emphasis into
spiritual values and shaping the education, awareness and
consciousness throughout the global community, the organizations
impact on human lives is entirely different than ISMs. As the
reader will later discover, the peace and justice served within the
ISM operates at a different setting than that of Tikkuns.
Little attention is paid by the ISM towards Israeli-claimed
reasons behind the occupation, i.e. the need for security.
Interviews reveal ISM participants to be overly action-oriented and
solution-driven; although many people have extensive knowledge into
the history and contextual backgrounds of the conflict,
participants are careful not to mention Palestinian violations
against Israeli life and rights. Though some eventually do concede
the atrocities conducted through acts of terror, almost every
person justifies such concessions by blaming the Israel government
for utilizing security as an illegitimate excuse for the
disproportional breach into Palestinian rights, complemented by the
subsequent ignorance of Israeli inhabitants. The justification is
essentially a phenomenon of blowback, where the structural violence
upon Palestinian rights leads to unintended and oftentimes
devastating consequences for its perpetrator Israel. The accusation
itself is highlighted by a realist paradigm, a tooth and claw
vision of the world that attempts to optimize power in the form of
territory, resource and influence, all at the expense of the other.
ISM recognition of political realism at work promotes a tremendous
urgency on behalf of interventionists to directly prevent and
correct the social wrongs in Palestine. The ISM calls forth three
major guiding solutions: supporting the Palestinian right to resist
occupation as cued by International Law; calling forth an end to
occupation and immediate compliance of UN Resolutions; calling
forth international intervention to ensure the safety of
Palestinian individuals, as well as Israeli compliance to
International Law. The ISM cites various successes in its
employment of nonviolence as a deterrent against Israeli violence
and incrimination, such as a demonstration at Shedma an Israeli
military base whereby the presence of Internationals, Palestinians,
and Israelis kept Israeli forces from using military violence.
Although Tikkun reaffirms the notions of Israeli misdeeds
against Palestine through oppression, violence and ignorance, the
organization reiterates the Palestinians own role in creating the
conflict by armed resistance during the days of Jewish immigration
and throughout the establishment of the Jewish state. Furthermore,
obstacles such as the occupation and settlements not only hinder
Palestinian rights but also stymie the growth of spiritual values,
especially within a renewed Judaism. Discourse into the causes
behind both camps is surprisingly in-depth and neutral, judiciously
characterizing the conflict broadly in terms of human nature and
the frailties therein. Tikkun bestows significant emphasis upon
Jewish values of love, peace and justice, citing that the ultimate
cause of conflict is due to the overarching realism muffling the
spiritual wisdom within Judaism. This realism is manifested in the
Settler Judaism mentality, which sees the world as always against
the Jews and equates good with whats good for the Jews. Through
differences of religion, history and culture, the conflict between
Israel and Palestine is marked by an elevated ethos, encouraging
the maximization of survival, well-being and power to the exclusion
of the other. Superimposed upon the realism here delineated is a
clash of civilizations, where adjacent groups along the fault lines
between civilizations struggle, often violently, over the control
of territory and each other. According to Huntingdon, Israel was
created by the West, a nation state subsumed by Western
civilization a category at the broadest level of cultural identity.
Palestine, aligned with the Arabic culture of Islamic civilization,
lies in direct cultural opposition to Israel, along vague and
transitory fault lines of conflict carved within the bloc of Arab
nation states. Most pronounced amongst the cultural differences is
religion and history, providing fervor and renewed perseverance to
the claims over the land. So long as these differences are viewed
as basic and immutable, thereby precluding possibilities of
reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, both camps will further
define themselves along cultural fault lines; indeed it was Israel
itself [that] helped to create a distinctive Palestinian
peoplehood. The realist clash of civilizations may be curbed
however by efforts promoting the traditional principles of Judaism
and the universal tenets of spiritual achievement. Whereas the ISM
limits its humanitarian principle to violence in Palestine, Tikkun
maintains a larger movement for healing and transformation of the
planet. This framework of understanding the conflict is also
absolute, but at a deeper level that allows for dialogue and the
interaction of diverse beliefs to coexist. Such coexistence is
meaning that may be transcribed upon the Middle East. The solution
for the Israel-Palestine conflict derives itself from the context
of mutual reconciliation and genuine compassion for each others
plights, unified under the belief that this social healing may be
reached not by political maneuvering but by spiritual
transformation. Though in support of direct nonviolent action and
international jurisdiction, Tikkun defines itself not as an
organization of political agendas but of a spiritual one; thus
action applied abroad as demonstrated by the ISM is underplayed by
tasks towards education, dialogue and public consciousness-raising
at ground zero. The Tikkun community incorporates its magazines,
website, and projects as a primary vehicle in spreading its core
vision, injecting its beliefs into various spheres such as Law,
where the organization established a legal task force in order to
re-imagine the legal system through writings and debate, arguing
for social responsibility that would lead [lawyers] to care about
the well-being of the entire community.
Nonviolent peacekeeping by the ISM within Palestine will
continue to raise public awareness of Palestinian civil rights
abuses. As the international spotlight shining upon human rights
abuses continues to intensify, so too will public sentiment open
new doors for policymakers in establishing negotiations, as well as
the imposition of International Law and UN Resolutions as called
for within its guiding solutions. In other words, ISM accomplishes
through direct appliance of fast-held humanitarian beliefs a
symbolic, efficient way of conveying a message to the rest of the
world. At the same time, lives will be saved in periods of violence
and crisis. However, Tikkuns harping on spiritual and utopian
virtues will have little effect upon the composure of realist
leaders and negotiators. Additionally, the organization lacks the
symbolic muscle of activist protests and demonstrations necessary
to incense the hearts of outsiders and spur the imaginations of
policymakers. This is due to the organizations encouragement of
diverse values, insofar as these values promote love and qualities
conducive to peace and justice. The shared discourse herein
discourages the elevation of any religious or secular denomination;
even the Jewish tradition is honored amongst a host of other major
spiritual traditions within the membership. Thus Tikkun cannot
maintain partiality to the Palestinian plight while turning a blind
eye to Israel needs and spiritual desires. Instead, Tikkun focuses
its energies upon uniting the diametric cultures of Israel and
Palestine under the umbrella of spiritual value. Although this aim
is weak in its utopian vision of the future and its naive
application to real life, it is precisely here in a shift away from
the practical and modern where we must address the realist
paradigms that separate Israel and Palestine by differences in
culture, religion, territorial and hegemonic interests. It is also
here where negotiations conducted without an open-heartedness and
generosity in both peoples to the legitimate needs of others, break
down no matter how hard the efforts of the ISM manifest. Even
mandates by International Law or from UN Resolutions will collapse
at a certain point, as proven by historical cycles of violence.
After detailed analysis into the methods employed by both social
action groups in framing the issues of concern to Israel and
Palestine, I refer back to their processes in determining three
major settings of conflict resolution. Conflict resolution rests
upon close monitoring of the pulse between Israel and Palestine,
wherein peacebuilding of institutions may give way and escalate
into peacemaking efforts to talk and head off possibilities of
violent outbreak. Failure results in the necessity of peacekeeping
to alleviate the violence, serving as damage control until
humanitarian intervention reopens bridges to restore the divide.
This second peacemaking process may defuse even further to the
rebuilding of institutional foundations. The Israel-Palestine
conflict is in a state of constant flux between peacekeeping and
peacemaking, alternating between the direct control of violence and
in periods of cease-firing, efforts to curb the possibility of
future violence. Though the ISM increases peace and justice in the
first setting through its nonviolent interventionist process of
containing surface damage inflicted by both states, it is
insufficient to ending the conflict permanently. Though Tikkun
increases peace and justice in the second setting through an
indirect, educational and conscious-raising approach to building
bridges between the cultural divide, it is insufficient in times of
violence when both states are entrenched in realist, clashing
ideals. I believe that conflict between the two states require a
greater concentration in peacemaking and the aims of Tikkun. While
peacekeeping efforts by groups such as the ISM is critically
important to the preservation of peace efforts in general, the
possibility of peacebuilding where one day institutions may be
rebuilt to integrate both Israeli and Palestinian cultures can only
be achieved through focusing upon the spiritual framework through
an open society where diverse beliefs may be shared under a common
bond. Promises Timeline. History of the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict. American Documentary Inc, 2001.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
What is the ISM?. The International Solidarity Movement. 24 Nov.
2003.
Ibid.
Mission Statement. The International Solidarity Movement. 24
Nov. 2003.
The Palestinian olive harvest Oct-Nov 2002, and the settler
violence directed against it. The International Solidarity
Movement. 24 Nov. 2003.
About Tikkun. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
http://www.tikkun.org/about_us/index.cfm>
Core Vision and Founding Principles. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Mission Statement. The International Solidarity Movement. 24
Nov. 2003.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Interview: Terry (last name undisclosed).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Interview: Bashir (last name undisclosed).
Core Vision and Founding Principles. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback. The Nation, 2001
Jerry Sanders. Lecture. [Inter]National Security: The Bush
Doctrine.
What is the ISM?. The International Solidarity Movement. 24 Nov.
2003.
Mission Statement. The International Solidarity Movement. 24
Nov. 2003.
Core Vision and Founding Principles. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
Ibid.
Huntingdon, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign
Affairs, 1993.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Promises Timeline. History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
American Documentary Inc, 2001.
Core Vision and Founding Principles. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
Ibid.
About Tikkun. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
http://www.tikkun.org/about_us/index.cfm>
Core Vision and Founding Principles. Tikkun. 24 Nov. 2003.
Jerry Sanders. Lecture. Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and
Peacebuilding.
Soros, George. The Capitalist Threat. Atlantic Monthly, 1997
