George Khoury, R, of the group Friends of Sabeel, alongside Allan Gale, of the Jewish Community Relations Council, lawyer Jamil Khuja, Don Cohen, of B’nai Brith International and Barbara Harvey, of Jewish Voice for Peace. PHOTO: Khalil AlHajal/TAAN

Local forums on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have become increasingly common in a region rich with Arab American, Jewish American and peace-activist communities, but rarely are advocates from opposite sides of the emotionally-charged issue brought together for events.
The Peace Center at Hope United Methodist Church in Southfield managed to do so on Tuesday, hosting a forum on Gaza and the West Bank that featured three fervent advocates for Palestinian rights alongside two ardent supporters of Israel.

The group spoke to a crowd of about 200 at the church.

Barbara Harvey, of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that advocates in favor of Palestinian rights and against what many of its members call apartheid, presented photos from a trip to the West Bank displaying, among other harsh images of occupation, the separation wall that divides the territory from Israel and cuts deep into Palestinian land.

A former ACLU legal director, Harvey said that Arab citizens of Israel are also treated unfairly. She said there are at least 20 laws that discriminate against non-Jews, including building permit measures that often result in the destruction of Palestinian homes.

Don Cohen, of B’nai Brith International Great Lakes Region, a strong supporter of Israel, spoke against what he called inaccurate perceptions of Israel as the aggressor in the conflict.

He took aim at Hamas throughout the discussion, describing the group as threatening to both Israelis and Palestinians, and blamed the group’s militancy and refusal to recognize Israel’s legitimacy for attacks the Israeli military often launches against the group and the populations surrounding it.

He said that sometimes Israel can be aggressive — “sometimes too aggressive” — and acknowledged that at times innocent Palestinian civilians get hurt.

“I do not contest Palestinian statehood. I do contest the kind of statehood the Palestinians are developing, particularly under Hamas,” Cohen said.

“Israel has no partner with which to make peace. It’s not the smiling kids in those pictures who I need to make peace with,” Cohen said, referring to photos in Harvey’s presentation.

“Hamas is opposed to democracy, secularism and equal rights.”

Cohen said he wants Israel and the Palestinians to live in peace, but that he opposes any efforts to “handcuff Israel and strengthen Hamas.”

Hamas, after winning a 2006 parliamentary election, seized control of Gaza in June 2007 after a week of fighting with rival faction Fatah, which retains control of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Jamil Khuja, a lawyer and Palestinian American community activist, took exception to Cohen’s characterization of Palestinian civilian casualties as an occasional result of Israeli defense measures.

He said killing of Palestinian civilians occurs “most of the time.”

“You can tell who’s the aggressor and who is the side defending itself by the numbers.”

Thirteen Israelis were killed in the most recent prolonged spat of violence between the sides, during a December-January offensive by the Israeli military in Gaza. Estimates of the number of Palestinians killed in the three weeks of attacks range from 1,166, according to the Israeli military, to 1,417, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. A suffocating blockade on the coastal strip remains in place.

Khuja said it was not Hamas, but Israel that broke the ceasefire when the offensive began.

On Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel, he said the demand to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist is made to humiliate the Palestinians and avoid negotiation.

“The Native Americans were not told that they had to accept the right for America to exist,” Khuja said. “America is here and it’s not going anywhere. Israel is here and it’s not going anywhere.”

Allan Gale, another supporter of Israel from the Jewish Community Relations Council, also spoke.

The speeches each went uninterrupted and there was little back-and-forth, but Gale prompted guffaws from the crowd when he suggested that Palestinians do not employ nonviolent resistance efforts, and that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arab women can vote.

Gale and Cohen both said that had the Arab side of the conflict accepted previous proposed settlements, including the 1947 U.N. partition plan, there would be no conflict.

Gale, who described the West Bank separation wall as a nonviolent fence that has been effective in curbing violence, said that there would be no refugees today if the Arab states would have accepted the 1947 partition.

“Had this been settled when it should’ve been,” Cohen said, “we wouldn’t even be talking about this.”

George Khoury, a Palestinian American of the group Friends of Sabeel, said past peace deals have never included the full restoration of Palestinian rights, including the right for refugees to return to the villages and towns from which they were displaced.

“Any solution… if it does not have justice in it, forget it,” he said. “Force will never bring peace. Only when justice prevails, will we have peace… There is no justice in what is being proposed by the Israel leadership and some sectors of Israeli society.”

Khoury told about being displaced from his home as a child, “having never harmed a Jewish person,” to make room for the Jewish state.

“Never mind that the Palestinians are the victims now. Tomorrow it will be somebody else.”

Printes Parker, a member of church’s congregation who attended the forum, said he was impressed that advocates from opposite ends of the spectrum could come together and speak respectfully on the heated topic.

“I like to think that there’s hope that there will be a negotiated settlement,” said Parker, 63, of Southfield.

He said he hopes bringing Jewish and Arab Americans together to talk becomes a growing trend.

“We wanted to hear all the voices that we can,” said Milli Lynne Johnson, a Peace Center coordinator, about bringing the different speakers together in a rare, inclusive forum.

She said the effort grew out of frequent interfaith projects that the church and the center coordinate.

“To slow down and try to have some respectful dialogue is really important,” she said.

The Peace Center has organized a follow-up event featuring Toledo attorney Linda Mansour, who recently returned from a trip to Gaza with a delegation of lawyers.

Mansour is to speak on May 20 at 6:30 p.m. at Hope United Methodist Church, 26275 Northwestern Highway in Southfield.

For more information, email Peace Center Director Barbara Talley at peacecenter@sbcglobal.net.