From: aaldoubo@copper.denver.colorado.edu (Anisa Alnoor Aldoubosh)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Friendship
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:54:44 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.mideast
Organization: University of Colorado at Denver

"A Friendship Based on a Common Struggle Survives the Test of Time"

Janet McMahon / August/September 1992 / Washington Report

	"On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the occupation,
	we have returned to the Israeli Embassy in London to voice
	our protest.

	"In 1973, we stood in this exact spot, at the gates of the
	embassy, to express our opposition to six years of occupation.

	"Nineteen years later, we have come together again, to deliver
	the same message.  The situation remains unchanged, the
	repression and violation of human rights continue.

	"We hope that an equitable and just solution will soon be found."

			-  Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel/June 4, 1992


"Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel have been friends for 20 years.  One a
displaced Palestinian, the other an American Jew, they have shared the
same goal for the two decades of their friendship - that the Palestinian
people should no longer live in exile from their homeland.

"In 1973, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the two friends
first stood in front of the Israeli embassy in London.  Ellen had come
to London following her first trip to the Middle East.  She was visiting
Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut when she heard that Israeli Olympic
athletes, taken hostage in Munich by Palestinian guerrillas, were killed
during a rescue attempt.  It also was in the refugee camps that she first
heard Jaffa and Haifa referred to as cities of Palestine, not Israel.  She
decided to move to London 'to work on the Palestinian issue'.

"Ghada, meanwhile had been in exile for nearly a quarter of a century.  She
was only eight when her parents fled their home in the Katamon neighborhood
of what is now West Jerusalem, amid 'the most appalling atmosphere of
terrorism'.  It was April 1948, a month before the state of Israel was
formally established, but her neighborhood, located in the hills overlooking
the city, was of great strategic value to the Zionists.  Jewish terrorists
even hid in her family's garden, shooting down at targeted Palestinians below.

"The family fled to Damascus, believing they would return 'in a matter of
weeks'.  When, after a year, Israel still would not allow them to return to
their home, her father took a job in London.  As her crisp British accent
testifies, Ghada attended school and received her medical degree in England,
and has lived there ever since.

"In 1972, Ghada created an organization called Palestine Action, which
published the newspaper Free Palestine.  Her aim was to place the Palestinian
agenda before the eyes of the world, which at that time saw Palestinians only
as hijackers and terrorists.  When Ellen arrived in London that year, she
looked in the phone book for Palestinian organizations and found Palestine
Action.  She and Ghada worked side by side for two years, until Ellen left
London in 1974.  They were not to see each other again for 18 years.

"During those years, Ghada continued to work for the Palestinian cause.  While
advancing her career in Britian's national health service, she also worked
with the Council for Arab-British Understanding and as a member of the
University of London's Middle East Center at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS).  She has also written numerous articles and appears often on
British radio and television.

"Ellen, a nurse, returned to Beirut in the 1980s to practice her profession in
the same refugee camps in which she was introduced to the Palestinians and
their story.  She was one of the Western medical workers in Beirut's Sabra
and Shatilla camps who, in 1982, barely escaped with their lives when Lebanese
Phalangists, protected by the Israeli invaders, massacred hundreds of men,
women, and children there.  She returned to her home in Washington, DC, where
she works as a nurse and, as a member of the Jewish Committee for Israeli-
Palestinian Peace, for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"A 'Desperate' Search"

"Although they followed each other's progress over the years, a photo of
Ghada and her daughter Salma that Ellen saw in the Palestinian paper Al Fajr
prompted their reunion.  The newspaper described Ghada's 'desperate' as she
calls it, attempt to find her childhood home during a visit to Jerusalem.

"All of the old landmarks had been destroyed, and Ghada's first two tries
were failures.  Then an Israeli friend found some elderly Jewish residents
who remembered what the neighborhood had looked like when they arrived in
1948.  Ghada's home had been turned into a synagogue.

"As the two friends' lives diverged during their long separation, so,
apparently, has their outlook.  Ellen says she 'has had to make peace with
Jews, to show greater understanding and sensitivity to their fears and
insecurities.  That,' she explains, 'has been a moderating influence'.

"Ghada, on the other hand, describers herself as 'more cynical and despairing'.
In 1973, she says, when she and Ellen first stood outside the Israeli embassy
in London, she had 'a powerful hope, a disbelief that such injustice could
really last and last'.  In the intervening years, however, she has 'come to
understand that the timespan of historical process is not tailor-made to an
individual's life'.

"Asked if they think the situation has improved for Palestinians today,
however, both Ghada and Ellen immediately answer 'no'.  For the Palestinians
remaining in their own land, Ellen says, 'the footage from 1968 is the same
as today'.  This is precisely the point of their 1992 demonstration.  In
Ghada's words, 'Nothing essential has changed, especially in the context of
[Arab-Jewish] dialogue and the peace process.  My right of return is still
not recognized'.

"As I prepare this article, Ellen told me that Ghada had said she would like
to hear someone apologize for what has happened to the Palestinians.  When
I asked Ghada whether she wanted the apology from the United Nations,
specific countries, or individuals, she responded:

	"The apology has to come from the Jews.  Part of them actually
	committed the physical dispossession, and part of them
	supported it.  I would like all of them to apologize, to say
	'We're sorry we did this to you', instead of behaving as if it
	were all just a misadventure or accident of fate".

"For nearly 20 years, these two friends have lived on opposite sides of the
ocean and experienced opposite sides of an historical tragedy, yet have
shared the same goal.  Each has the courage of her own convictions and
works with her own people.  Nevertheless, each respects the other's life and
experience.

"'Give my love to Ellen', said Ghada Karmi, as she hung up the telephone in
her London home."

End of article

Anisa


Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast