Larry Lerner
February 07, 2008
We are witnessing “a perfect storm” of efforts to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, says Lawrence Lerner, a longtime New Jersey Jewish leader and president of the American support group for the left-leaning Meretz-Yachad Party in Israel.
Lerner, who lives in Warren, traveled to Israel recently with a group from Meretz USA and Brit Tzedek V’Shalom, the American-based Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice.
“Both sides would be better off if there was peace,” Lerner said, discussing the trip last week soon after his return. “The surveys show that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians support the idea of a two-state solution. The problem is the absence of leadership — from the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Americans.”
Despite that, he said, he came away with the impression that the desire for a settlement might even pressure the Hamas leadership in Gaza to agree to some kind of compromise.
Lerner’s 12-day group trip began Jan. 10, the day after President George W. Bush concluded his visit to Israel. The Meretz-Brit Shalom visit was held concurrently with a number of other peace-seeking conferences and discussions. Some were follow-ups to the Annapolis conference last November; some — like Lerner’s — were planned long before.
Through his contacts and those of his co-travelers, they met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Labor Party Knesset member Colette Avital, and various other Israeli leaders. On the Palestinian side, they met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad and activist Hanan Ashrawi.
In addition to the meetings with leaders, Lerner’s group also spent time at Kibbutz Metzer, near the West Bank border, where warm cooperation with neighboring Arab villages has been sustained even after a terrorist attack in 2002. They met with members of MachsomWatch, a group of Israeli women who monitor activity at Israeli checkpoints, trying to ease the hardship faced by ordinary Palestinians; with journalists; and with peace activists from both sides.
Lerner asserted that the two issues so often cited as obstacles to peace — the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Arab refugees — were in fact not the real road blocks and were being used to obscure a more subtle resistance.
Central to the ongoing conflict, he said, was the failure by the Israeli leadership to bolster the standing of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. That began with Ariel Sharon’s decision as prime minister to pull out of Gaza unilaterally rather than with a mutual agreement that might have given Abbas added political clout.
The Bush administration’s premature push for elections in 2006, to show it was supporting democracy, further weakened Abbas, said Lerner. Olmert’s failure to act against even blatantly illegal settlers and the apparent lack of coordination between the leadership and the Israel Defense Forces have undermined Abbas even more, he said.
Fayad told Lerner that after Annapolis, in keeping with the “road map” agreements, the PA started to try to round up criminal elements in the West Bank city of Nablus. Their efforts were stymied by the arrival of the IDF, which took over the task, further depriving the PA of a chance to demonstrate its autonomy and strength.
Source of hope
Lerner said he was filled with despair by what he saw in Hebron, where 800 Jewish settlers live among 86,000 Palestinians. The heavy military presence that separates the two sides has managed to disrupt business and normal life, leaving the central market place deserted.
His meeting with Netanyahu was similarly depressing: Lerner said the Likud leader’s declared refusal to deal with Abbas “would make [Abbas] a eunuch.”
On the other hand, Lerner said he was enormously heartened by the visit to Kibbutz Metzer and the proof that with the right intentions, Jews and Arabs can triumph over extremists on either side.
Another possible source of hope, he said, is the train line proposed by the Rand Corporation that would link Palestinian cities in the West Bank with Gaza, crossing through Israel either with a tunnel or an over-land corridor. Lerner suggested that such a move would hold out such potential benefits, it might push Hamas to cooperate with Abbas and with Israel.
Lerner, a lawyer with offices in Westfield, was recently appointed president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. He is also the immediate past president of the New Jersey State Association of Jewish Federations and a leader in the Reform Judaism movement.
“I’ve been a Zionist all my life and I am still one,” Lerner said. “I came back without answers, but I’m not depressed about the situation. You have to look at the bagel, not the hole in the middle.”